


Trek Effect

by FourOhFour



Category: Mass Effect, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Gen, The Borg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 67,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourOhFour/pseuds/FourOhFour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the U.S.S. Enterprise E investigates an anomaly  near the Romulan Neutral Zone, Picard and his crew quickly find strange new allies to help them deal with Romulans, the Borg, and the Reapers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the end of Mass Effect 2 for their crew, and between Insurrection and Nemesis for the Star Trek crew, though the events of the fic will dramatically change the outcome of both universes.

_Captain's Log, Stardate 53533.7: We've been ordered to investigate an unusual anomaly near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Starfleet’s long range radiation analysis indicates a form of exotic matter not yet known to us. Our parameters are to insure that the disturbance is safe before sending in a science vessel to conduct a more thorough examination to determine the exact nature of the disturbance and rule out the possibility that it was the result of a Romulan weapon test._

“I don't really know that much about human physiology, Commander. I gave him some medi-gel, it looks like he's going to be okay.”

Picard was only dimly aware of the oddly accented voice at first, like it was at the edge of his hearing.

“I think he's starting to come around. I'll hold position here, just hurry. Whatever is powering this thing is pretty volatile, and I have no idea how the containment system works.”

As Picard became more aware he could hear the sound of small explosions. Those seemed to actually be distant, and not just a result of his being hardly conscious. It took him longer still before his mind finally made a connection between the sound and memory. It was gunfire. His eyes snapped open at that.

“Stay still! Everything is under control! Mostly!”

He was in his shuttle craft. He was having a hard time remembering exactly what had happened. He could almost hear Beverly’s voice in his head, telling him that retrograde amnesia of the events directly before an accident was common. Given the fact that gravity seemed to be pulling him down at nearly a right angle from the floor, however, as well as the state of the shuttle interior, it was clear the shuttle had crashed.

What was less clear was the figure in front of him. She was alien, that much was obvious from the digitigrade bend to her legs. In Picard's still woozy state, he couldn't help but think of them as being like a satyr. How goat like the legs were, however, was impossible to determine, as the figure was covered head to toe in an air tight looking suit, covered in places with a purple fabric. Even her face was covered by a visor, through with Picard could see only a hint of dimly glowing eyes.

Picard forced himself to his feet with a groan, gripping at one of the now dead control panels to help keep himself upright on the oddly tilted floor.

“Seriously, don't move too much. You could have brain damage. … I imagine, anyway. I always thought humans were at higher risk than most species...” Her voice had an odd electric distortion to it, from being filtered through her helmet. She wasn't a member of any species Picard could recognize. The shotgun on her back, and knife strapped to her boot were far from reassuring however.

“What's going on?” Picard managed to choke out, very aware of how sore his throat was.

“I'm not entirely sure,” the woman said. “We're under attack. … Is this thing safe to be in? If I didn't know better, I'd say it had some sort of anti-matter reactor but... Keelah, that's insane...”

Picard forced his way over to a functioning panel. “Containment is still fine. We're perfectly safe.”

He reached over to the weapon's locker. The keypad that was needed to unlock it had been destroyed in the crash. Fortunately, so had the locking mechanism. Still the metal was twisted enough it took some effort to wrench it open.

“Wait, that thing IS an anti-matter reactor? That explains the explosion, but...”

Picard grabbed the phaser rifle that looked to be in the best condition. “You're from the anomaly, right? The ship? The Normandy?”

“That's right,” the woman said. “How did you get our name?”

“And our attackers? Black hair, pointed ears? Humanoid?” Picard said.

The woman nodded. “You know them. I suppose that's why they concentrated their fire on your ship.”

There was a slight chuckle from outside the shuttle door. Another alien poked his head inside the vessel. It was another species Picard had trouble recognizing. Although there were enough known species that it was almost impossible for any one person to know all of them, Picard was familiar enough with the common faces that he was surprised at seeing two in a row he didn’t recognize. This one seemed to have some sort of exoskeletal structure across its face, making its expression almost totally unreadable. Only the eyes showed through it. Instead of lips, it had a beaklike mouth, with a set of mandibles to each side. With time to study their culture, it would be no doubt possible to read expressions from the mandibles. For now, Picard's only indication of the creature's amusement was the laugh in its flanging voice.

“Phalanx cannons sliced right through them. Whatever they were using as shields, it wasn't built to take that. … Or all those calibrations paid off. If it turns out to be the calibrations, I'm going to rub all your faces in it forever.”

“Garrus!” the woman jumped in surprise. “Aren't you supposed to be fighting the aliens?”

“I'd love to be,” the creature, apparently Garrus, said. “Shepard is pulling back, she wanted to make sure you and the human were safe. Our ship cannons may have punched through their shields like they weren't even there, but I'm afraid whatever crazy ass weapons they're using are doing the same to ours down here. Did you find out anything about this guy yet?”

“He only just woke up,” the woman said.

“Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Starship U.S.S. Enterprise. We were sent to investigate an anomaly. We found a vessel. When we magnified our image of the hull we were able to determine the registry was one S.S.V. Normandy SR2. I'm afraid I don't remember much more.”

“Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. This is Garrus Vakarian. If Shepard is pulling back, we better get you to the Normandy. Can you walk?”

“I think so. Might help clear my head a little.”

“You can lean on me if you need to,” Garrus said. “Come on, we should be clear. Shepard's setting up defensive turrets. They don't seem to be using shields at all, so the bastards will have a hard time getting past that.

As it soon transpired, Picard was able to walk far better once he was on level ground again. Distantly he could make out what looked to be the wreck of the strange ship he'd seen on the viewerscreen.

“Your ship was damaged in the attack?”

“You could say that,” Tali said.

Picard flinched as he heard a minor explosion in the distance. “I apologize for the circumstances. This isn't normally how we prefer to make first contact with other races...”

“We've met humans before,” Tali said. “Though I've never seen a ship like yours before. It's very... unique.”

Before they could say much else, a redheaded woman ran up to them, as they got nearer to the ship. She was clad in a thick black armour, with a white and red stripe down the side of her right arm, looking vaguely like a stripe taken from an old Union flag to Picard.

“Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. You must be Captain Picard. Good to finally meet you.”

Picard shook her hand, vaguely remembering a primitive correspondence they'd manage to set up with her vessel. “Good to meet you as well. I must warn you, I have very little memory of what happened since we made contact with your vessel.”

“I'm not entirely sure what happened either. You were on your way to dock with us when another ship disengaged their stealth systems and opened fire on your shuttlecraft and ship. We were able to bring the ship down, but your vessel ejected some sort of... bomb. The explosion brought us down, but the damage is minimal. Good think Joker’s as good a pilot as he likes to brag about.”

“Crazy as it sounds, I think EDI was right about it being an anti-matter explosion,” Tali said. “The shuttle has a tiny little anti-matter reactor in it.”

Picard nodded slightly. “From the sound of it, the Enterprise was forced to jettison the warp core for some reason. It's likely they had to use the rest of their power to escape the detonation. I'm sure they would have warned you if they could.”

“They did,” said Garrus. “It was just a basic S.O.S. though. Given the size of the... uh... warp core, we didn't think the blast would be that large.”

“Is there any hope of getting some assistance from your ship?” Shepard asked.

“Not likely. They'd be saving what's left of the power to maintain life support. They may send a shuttle, but the Romulans might still have enough of their ship intact to shoot them down. Besides that, the miniature warp cores may be needed for emergency power if the axillary doesn't hold out.”

“All right,” said Shepard. “It looks like it's just us for now.

\----- 

“I'd rather keep you under observation for a while, but I get the feeling that starship commanders are the same, no matter where they come from.”

“How interesting,” said Picard. “I was just thinking the same thing about doctors.”

Chakwas couldn't help but laugh slightly. “All right, you better head up to the CIC. Shepard wanted me to send you to the conference room as soon as we were done here. You remember the way to the elevator?”

“Yes, thank you doctor.”

Picard could hardly imagine serving on a ship this small as he made his way to the elevator. There were only five decks, from what he could tell, and one of those was so small as to only contain the quarters for the commanding officer. From what he could tell, the deck he was on was the only sort of living quarters and recreational area for the entire crew. Oddly enough, he’d overheard remarks from some of the crew members on board commenting on how roomy the accommodations were. It’d put him in mind of old ocean going vessels, or early starships where space needed to be conserved in any way possible. By those standards the ship was roomy, but hardly by any other standards. It certainly shot down any speculation that this ship was from the future. Perhaps it hailed from an old human colony, the kind that set forth on sub-light arc ships before warp flight was invented. It would explain the technological gap, as well as the new species of alien life, if they were from an otherwise unexplored region of space. 

Even the elevator itself proved to be somewhat remarkable. Picard could not remember having ever ridden one quite so slow. The divergent technology was interesting. In some places the ship seemed impossibly advanced, or at least astoundingly different, given the implication that it went faster than light without any form of warp drive or singularity core. And yet in some places, elevator system included, it seemed downright primitive. 

Emerging in the CIC, Picard couldn't help but delay his moving to the conference room. He'd gotten a brief look on his way into the medical bay, but he wanted a closer look. In many ways, the CIC of this human ship seemed more alien than any bridge he'd encountered from any species. There was no viewscreen to be seen, no captain's chair, no space for the first officer, no tactical station. All these elements Picard had seen on almost every ship of every species known, save Dominion ships, which still had private viewscreens in some of the helmets.This ship didn't have even that. Instead it simply had a place to stand, with a view of a holographic galaxy map.

The helm even was some distance up from where the captain would stand, down a long hallway containing several stations. Picard imagined those stations the functional equivalent of the command stations that stood behind his chair on his own bridge. Almost everything, it seemed, was co-ordinated by coms, from directions to the pilot, to firing orders to the gunnery. Picard suspected the layout was based at least partly on some of the alien species he’d seen previously. Command Bridges he knew didn’t look similar by co-incidence, but because of an exchange of ideas, from cooperation, to outright stealing enemy ideas, until everyone seemed to have settled on a more or less optimal layout. Even with the vastness of space, it seemed unlikely the emissions of so many species would remain undetected. No, something else was at play.

When he walked into the conference room, however, he noted some truth in what the doctor had said. Something truly never changed. In spite of the lack of chairs, he almost felt like he'd suddenly walked into a Starfleet vessel again, with the crew arranged around a single long table.

“Captain. Your injuries aren't too serious then, I trust?” Shepard said as he walked in.

“The doctor said it was a minor concussion. I've certainly had worse in my time. It's a very interesting ship you have, Commander.”

Shepard called up a hologram of the planet's surface from the middle of the table. Picard couldn't but be impressed by the advanced holography the ship seemed to utilize as part of its everyday interfaces. Even the Enterprise E still used touch screens.

“This is where we are. This is where the... uh...”

“Romulan.”

“Thank you, Captain. This is where the Romulan ship is. Tali sent some drones to have a look at the remains of their vessel. It's very badly damaged, but they do appear to have functioning weaponry, which is bad news for us.”

Picard frowned. “Surely you could get out of effective range before your shields ran out?”

A computerized voice spoke up, similar to the Enterprise computer, though it had a much more natural, flowing speech, as opposed to the flat monotone of the Enterprise computer. “As of yet, I am still unable to analyze the capability of the Romulan ship's weaponry. However, it appears they are using a form of particle weapon that our shields were not designed to withstand, much like their shields were unable to repel out Phalanx cannons. In essence, we emerged victorious simply on the grounds that we fired first.”

“And the Romulans aren't our only problem,” Shepard continued. “We're flying blind, basically. Our com systems can't pick up a mass relay anywhere in the area. Maybe if we could meet up with your ship, we'd be able to get to one?”

“I'm afraid I'm not even sure of what a mass relay is. When we encountered your vessel we noticed traces of an inverse warp field. My best guess was that your ship may have come from a universe parallel to this one. Given the exotic matter particles that drew us in, I’m not entirely certain the physical principles of our universes are the same.”

“... EDI?”

“Define warp field, Captain?”

“One of my engineers could offer a better explanation I’m sure,” Picard said. “But it’s a bubble in space time. Essentially contracting space in front of us and expanding it behind us.” 

“Which would also allow you to travel without feeling relativistic effects. A fascinating solution to the light speed problem.”

“Yeah, thanks, EDI,” said Shepard. “What about this parallel universe thing? I’ve never heard any actual confirmation of something like this happening.”

“The captain's theory is sound. An inverse warp field could, in theory, move matter from one universe to another. If that is the case, then mass relays, and even element zero may not be native to this universe.”

Perfect,” a woman said, walking in. Her outfit didn’t look like the uniforms he’d seen on the ship, but was black with a gold trim instead, though it did contain the logo Picard had seen on the other uniforms, as well as the hull of the ship. There was something vaguely off about the woman’s face, though Picard struggled to put a finger on what it was.

“Not often I find a man staring so intently at my face,” she said. “Though I can't say I object to the change.”

“Perfectly symmetrical,” Picard muttered, finally touching on what it was that seemed so odd about her face. He'd never seen one so exactly the same on one side as the other. There were always some minor variations, usually too subtle to really notice, but their absence was certainly noticeable in an unnerving way.

“Let’s just say I’ve had a lot of gene therapy,” she said.

“Miranda, what did you mean by 'perfect?'” said Shepard.

“What I meant was that you are to report to Alliance justice for the destruction of that Batarian system. The Illusive Man would happily see us swinging from the outside of the hull by our necks, and half of our crew are wanted criminals. I may not want to be a permanent resident of this universe, but it may be a nice time to lay low for at least a few weeks.”

“Thanks for saying all that in front of our guest,” Shepard muttered.

Picard would have been lying if he said that what he'd just heard hadn't been intriguing, if somewhat troubling, but he knew this was a bad time to start getting morally indignant.

“We'll have time for explanations later,” Picard said. “From what I understand, your engines won't be able to travel far enough to get anywhere by yourself. The engines for my ship are short the warp core needed to make them run.”

“Correct,” said Shepard.

“The best solution, then, would be to use your ship's power supply to get extra power to the Enterprise. With that we could call for aid and keep the life support running until a replacement warp core was delivered. We could then tow your ship to the nearest starbase and work out what to do from there. I trust between your engineers and mine, we can work out a way to make this ship's power supply compatible with the Enterprise systems.”

“There's still the enemy ship to worry about,” said Miranda.

“The Romulans are very secretive,” Picard said. “Especially when it comes to technology. That being said, I believe I know how a small strike team could disable their weapons. Is there anyone on your crew used to operation like that?”

“Yeah...” said Shepard. “You, uh... you could say that...”


	2. Chapter 2

_First Officer's Log, Supplemental: By sending morse code signals over our subspace radio we have managed to make contact with the Normandy. The commanding officer has identified herself as one Fiona Shepard of something called the Alliance Navy. Currently her computer is sending us information for how to decode their communications signals, but given the complexity of the message, and the slow speed of morse code, it may be some time. Over my objections, Captain Picard has accepted an invitation to board their vessel. Given the invitation was given to the Enterprise commanding officer, and no one else was included, he has insisted on going by himself._

“All right, I had a look at Captain Picard's phaser rifle, and I've reconfigured our personal shields. They should offer at least a little protection against this sort of energy weapon now. Are you sure you’re not coming with us, Captain?”

Picard smiled at the young Quarian. He'd had a little time to glance at files on various species while Tali has been working on the shields. While his understanding was far from complete, he understood the title of captain bore a little more weight with the Quarians, and she seemed to call him by it obsessively, almost in spite of herself.

“I’m afraid I’d only get in the way, Miss Zorah. However I am familiar, at least in theory, with the layout and operations of the ship. I’ll be guiding you from here.”

“Fortunately for us, we're all on the ground anyway, so I don’t see a point to taking in a small team,” Shepard said. “Tali, Jacob and I are going to be the main team, but Zaeed, Grunt, and Jack are going to be creating a distraction for us.”

“I almost feel sorry for the Romulans,” said Tali.

“Kasumi is doing infiltration ahead of us, she'll try to make sure all the doors are open, and security systems disarmed. The south ridge is an ideal location for snipers, so Garrus, Thane, and Legion will be covering our entrance and exit from there.”

“I'm impressed,” Picard said. “Just make sure your people stay out of the engineering area. Romulan ships don't use matter/anti-matter reactions. Instead they have a singularity core. If containment was lost on it, it could be... bad.”

“A singular-- keelah, is everyone in this universe completely insane?”

“I know it seems extreme, but without your... element zero, there are limited ways of getting the power needed for warp speed,” Picard said.

“I used to live on a ship that was over a hundred years old, and needed constant maintenance so it didn't fall apart. At one point, we ran short on tubing, so for about four years, the engine coolant and air circulation systems shared some of the same tubes, alternating between the two. If it had gone wrong even once, and pumped air into the engine, or coolant into the air, we would have all died. Almost instantly. And yet, it's your engines that scare me, captain.”

Shepard shook her head slightly. “We're burning daylight, we better get a move on.”

Picard nodded slightly, in spite of his concern. They didn’t have stun weapons, so there were going to be fatalities. How the Romulan High Command was going to spin this needed to be considered, he decided. However dire the short term situation was, he couldn't ignore the long term effects. If he'd been dealing with anyone besides the Romulans, that might have been a little easier.

The Romulan's brazen attack was worrying. It was out of character for them to launch an assault without having at least the pretense of a justification. The rules of the game were strange, but seemingly clear on that point. In many ways, both the Romulans and the Federation wanted a war. While the Federation officially favored peace in all conflicts, there were plenty of practical minds in command positions who knew that a swift blow to the Romulan Empire could save a lot more lives in the long run. Federation lives, anyway.

In many ways, the sides weren't especially different. Both the Federation and the Romulans refused to go down in history as the ones who started the war, but they also both wanted to get the first shot off.

The most straightforward way for the Romulans to deal with this would be to declare it a brutal Federation massacre. Given the fact that they were currently fighting on a Federation world, however, that likely wouldn't work out well. No, Picard decided, that's how it would happen if these were Cardassians. Cardassian culture emphasized loyalty to the state heavily enough that whatever the state said was the truth. More or less, anyway. The Cardassians also had very different ideas about what truth was than other cultures.

Romulans, however, were too individualistic for that. They were far more like Vulcans, but also human as well. Cunning and intelligent, while very proud, and seeing great value to their emotions and philosophy. That lie would be too thin for them. Something more complicated then. Perhaps that it was a stolen Warbird, used to fake a Romulan incursion into Federation space. It was more plausible and painted the Federation as the deceivers. Or perhaps that the Federation had interfered with the navigation of the Warbird, causing it to move into Federation space unwittingly, where it could be attacked. That would be more in line with the physical evidence.

It was, as Picard had reflected in the past, always a game of chess with the Romulans. The only way this was going to turn out well was if he started thinking a few moves ahead.

“Miss Goto, do you read me?” he said, talking into the communicator he had been given.

“Loud and clear. Jean-Luc. Whaddaya need?”

“While I'm sure your previous jobs didn't include living beings as something to steal, I'd rather like to take the Romulan commander captive, if you have time after your current assignment. I want to know the reasoning behind the attack. I can supply you with a phaser if you--”

“Yeah, I already stole one from your shuttle. Nabbed one of the little ones. It's more my speed. What setting is stun?”

Well there went the prime directive, if it wasn't gone already. Kasumi’s casual form of address didn’t get by him either, and he noticed she was similar with Shepard. “One through three are the stun settings for humanoid life forms. In this case, I'd recommend three.”

“Thanks, Jean-Luc. I like how intuitive the controls are, by the way. That's gonna make it much easier to sell later.”

“Fantastic,” Picard muttered to himself, shutting off the com-link. The denizens of this other universe were clearly warp capable, or the equivalent. Contact itself was a non-issue. Advanced technology falling into their hands, however, was.

“Kasumi's fairly honest. … For a thief,” the young Asari woman next to Picard, Liara, said. “I don't think she'd sell it to anyone who would do any major harm with it. Honestly, she's probably going to sell it to the Human Systems Alliance for study. Under an assumed identity of course.”

Picard nodded, not saying that that was, in fact, precisely what he was worried about. That was a problem for another day.

“Fuck, Shepard, are we gonna rip these guys a new one or what?” a voice said over the communicator. Picard had been briefly introduced to the crew, and he recognized the voice as Jack. He couldn't help but remember that Shepard had made sure his introduction to her had been particularly brief.

“Start whenever you're ready, Jack. Just try not to kill their commander, and don't damage their engines. We'll know when you start from the explosions and screaming.”

“Damn straight you will.”

The sound of a shotgun blast, and a distant promise of destruction echoed over the landscape. 

“That’s our cue,” Shepard said. “Let’s go!” 

Picard watched Shepard’s crew head off through the barren landscape towards the wreckage of the warbird. Shepard had set up a field base for him, Miranda, and Liara, so he could track their progress on a screen. He’d always been a bit baffled by the design of the ships. They seemed to include a lot of empty space, and no one was entirely sure why. His guess had always been that it made the hull a harder target. In any case, it had served the ship well, with the outer wings acting almost like cushions for the main body of the ship, leaving almost two thirds of the ship relatively intact. It looked like they had made a tactical decision to land on the side the Normandy had damaged. Picard just hoped the incomplete Warbird schematics that, officially, the Federation didn't have, and that, officially, he had never seen were accurate, and that he was remembering them correctly.

Shepard’s entry to the ship looked to be surprisingly easy. Picard was able to watch the action via binoculars from where he was set up, and planned to keep an eye on it until they made it inside the ship. Jack, Grunt, and Zaeed appeared to be serving a very brutal distraction indeed, and there were several holes in the ship's hull that would serve as entry points. The Romulans didn't have the forces to cover them all. Not anymore anyway.

Still they were unlucky, and the breach they had selected was guarded. However, as the Romulan leaned out from behind his cover to fire at them, he was immediately struck dead by a sniper shot.

“Scratch one!” the turian's voice shouted over the com.

“One?” another voice said. “Goddamn one? Gimme a break.”

“We'll have to look at our tallies sometime, Massani. You'd be surprised how many people Archangel got.”

“Don't you ask them for radio silence?” Picard muttered to Liara, making sure his microphone was off.

“We can be a little… enthusiastic sometimes,” Liara said. “Usually Shepard only takes two people with her at a time though. Helps keep it quieter.”

“Terrifying as your use of anti-matter is, Captain, I can't wait to have a look at one of these ships while it's actually working,” Tali said as she moved into the ship.

“Something tells me this Romulan thing is more than just a one time skirmish,” Shepard remarked over the radio.

“Did your earth have a cold war?” Picard said.

“Ah. That's bad.”

“Perhaps someone could explain to the quarian?” Tali chimed in. “It sounds to me like you had a war fought with ice beams. Which would be kind of cool, but I get the feeling I'm wrong.”

“Of course,” Picard said. “When humanity first developed nuclear weaponry, there was a standoff between world powers. Much of it was economically motivated. The U.S.S.R. was a communist state. The other powers were... shall we say aggressively cautious of such an economic plan? The human race stood on the brink of destruction for years.”

“Ah... I see,” Tali said. “So basically what happened with the Krogan, before they were uplifted. Except you didn't fire your weapons, and economics were involved.”

“The Romulan conflict does not have the same stakes, fortunately. However, the political climate still feels much the same. And a war with the Romulans would be devastating.”

“So these Romulans are communists?” said Tali. Picard thought he picked up a hint of uneasiness in her voice.

“No,” Picard said. “It’s not an economically based conflict. The roots are actually based in a lasting conflict between them and our allies, the Vulcans, who are also members of the Federation. The only real reason to fight is fear the other side will attack.”

Shepard frowned. “So why attack first if no one actually wants a war? Why did it heat up?”

“That's exactly what I intend to find out,” Picard said. “Turn left at the next junction.”0

Eventually they made their way into the weapon maintenance area for the disruptor array. Fortunately it was empty. Picard didn’t imagine it would be a good place to start shooting.

“The main access panel is in the far starboard corner,” Picard said. “You should be able to permanently disable the Romulan plasma cannons from there.”

Picard heard the pop of an access panel being pulled away over the radio, and Tali’s voice. “Do you have any idea how this works, Captain? Somewhere to get started, maybe?”

“I'm sorry, no. We have almost no information about Romulan ship design. Even during our brief alliance, they were very protective of their secrets, as were we.”

“I've got a grenade,” Shepard offered.

“No,” Tali said. “That could wind up very badly for us... It probably wouldn't kill us all. But... well... Probably. I'm sure I can figure this out well enough. Working on the assumption that electricity is the same in this universe, the basics of the system can't be too different. You still need wires, and resistors, and microchips...”

“We'll guard the door and let you work” Shepard said. “If anyone can do it, it's you.”

“Thanks, Shepard.”

It was a very long and tense wait. Picard couldn't help but feel like sixty percent of being a captain was waiting for an engineer to fix something. It was always both a simultaneously humbling and frustrating experience in most cases. In most situations a captain was in charge of his ship completely, but Picard often felt his his command didn't extend to the engineering deck. Down there, repairs took the amount of time they took, regardless of what he ordered or desired. He could tell Riker how long the staff exercises would be, he could tell Worf when and for how long the security drills would be, but he couldn't tell Geordi when and for how long his repairs would be. This time it was added onto the feeling of passively sitting back while other people risked their lives on his behalf, as he so often thought about during away missions.

“I've got it,” Tali said after what felt like forever. “It seems to use an isolinear chip structure, which I'm not familiar with, but this is clearly some sort of magnetic gate that regulates the plasma flow. It seems to be linked into seven different--”

 

“Tali,” Shepard said. “The short version?”

Picard heard the sound of something being ripped from the panel and then smashed. “Done. If they try to fire, they'll just fry the emitter now.”

“Kasumi, what’s your status?” Shepard said. 

“I’ve got the Romulan commander,” Kasumi said. “I don’t really care to haul her out on my own though. I’ll drag her to your position, we can leave together.”

“All right everyone,” Shepard said into the communicator. “Get ready to pull back. We're done here. Just let us get out, and we can get the hell off this rock.”

\----- 

“Okay people, we've got green lights across the board,” Joker said. “Uh, except for navigation. And things might be a little bumpy. And, you know, a couple other yellow lights. Whatever. It’ll be fine.”

“If you'll excuse me, Captain, I should probably inform Mordin,” Liara said. “We wouldn't want your Romulan getting bumped around overly.”

Picard nodded. “Of course, Dr. T'Soni. If it's possible, I'd love to read one of these papers you mentioned on these Protheans, however. It reminds me a little of my academy days, studying the Iconians.”

Liara nodded. “I'll see if I happen to have a copy with me. At the very least, if I can get extranet access, my thesis should be on record. Perhaps we can meet in the lounge later.”

Picard watched her leave with interest. Many species had longer lifespans than humans, naturally, but even a Vulcan would start to be looking at least middle aged by the time they got past a hundred. Dr. T'Soni, by contract, looked young enough to be his daughter still. He couldn’t help but be a little envious of her. She had hundreds of years left to do her research, as well as anything else she chose to do. For him, it had been exploration, academics, or family: pick one. He didn’t regret his choice, but it was still something to see someone who had a life long enough for all three, if not more. 

He was also somewhat interested by Dr. Solus, in spite of having met him only very briefly. He'd been told his species lived to be only about thirty years old. It was difficult to comprehend how any life form could collect the amount of knowledge that Mordin had in such a short time span. Picard was damn sure he had been a complete idiot at Mordin's age. Perhaps that was why he moved so quickly. Trying to cram as much living into as short a time as possible. Picard had no doubt that if anyone was capable of getting a full life worth of living done in such a short time, it was Mordin, though he supposed his view of how much time that constituted was somewhat arbitrary. Perhaps 30 years was enough after all. Perhaps, as Picard was starting to suspect, even a thousand years wouldn’t be enough.

In any case, Mordin had been given the task of keeping the Romulan commander sedated until they could get her into the Enterprise brig. The Normandy was lacking such a structure, and even the two cargo bays were serving double duty as living quarters, meaning they couldn't be locked off for a makeshift cell. Dr. Chakwas had been picked for the job originally but it transpired that Mordin had more knowledge in terms of anesthetics than she did. Picard wasn't at all sure he was comfortable contemplating the reasons for why that might be.

“You seem to have an inordinate amount of doctors on board for a ship of this nature, Commander,” Picard commented.

Shepard smiled slightly. “Liara's not crew. She was just visiting when we found ourselves here. I'm a little surprised she's taking all this so well. She’s a busy person. Lot of work to get back to. I guess her assistant Feron can probably handle it, but… Between you and me, this is probably good for her. No more falling asleep at her desk, at least for a little while.”

“With research?” Picard said. “Is it so time sensitive?”

“I guess you could call it research of a sort, maybe,” Shepard said.

Picard gripped onto the railing by the galaxy map as the ship started to lift off the ground. “You know,” he said quietly. “The fact that you aren't being entirely honest with me hasn't escaped me.”

“I prefer to see it as... keeping certain truths from you. I don't think I've lied.”

“You did identify as Alliance Navy.”

“I am Alliance Navy.”

Picard glanced around the ship slightly. “Your crew has been rather tight lipped, but it hasn't been too hard to gather that this is not an Alliance ship. And this is certainly is not an Alliance crew.”

Shepard shifted her weight uncomfortably. “All right, you have a point there. I still consider myself Alliance, but I don’t know where I stand officially. Not sure anyone has worked it out yet. I was dead for a couple of years. They’re going to have to come up with whole new forms just for me. But I haven’t been officially kicked out yet. The ship belongs to an organization called Cerberus. They’re a little extreme, but I’m not working for them. They’re just the only ones willing to back me. I still make the decisions, and when I don’t need their resources to protect humanity, and possibly everyone else as well, I’m done with them.”

Picard nodded slightly. “I'm not trying to make judgements. I don’t yet understand your universe well enough to do that, and it’s not my purpose here anyway. I just want to be as informed as to what’s going on as I can be”

Picard honestly didn't know what to make of Shepard. Most of her normal crew seemed like decent people. The Quarian was downright charming. However, the sheer number of criminals, mercenaries, psychopaths, and generally disreputable people collected on a vessel of questionable legality was deeply disturbing as well.

It reminded Picard vaguely of rumors he had heard about Section 31 operations, which, if they were to be believed, often used disposal ruffians, in order to have operatives who could be eliminated easily, wouldn't have any moral issues with their orders, and couldn't be traced back to anyone. Not that such rumors had any backing, of course.

Although that did link back to the problem of what Starfleet would do about the Romulan attack. Much as he feared whatever longer game the Romulans were playing, there were plenty of Admirals who would be happy to have the excuse...

“Commander, we're picking up the other ship on our sensors,” EDI said.

“Already?” Picard said.

“While our FTL travel appears to be slower than yours by a considerable degree, the Normandy is still capable of crossing star systems in a relatively small amount of time,” EDI explained. “You yourself reported that the Enterprise would have been moving at sub-light speeds, and only far enough to clear the blast of their own warp core.”

Picard nodded and tapped his combadge experimentally. “Number 1, can you read me?”

“Riker here, Captain!” the first officer sounded ecstatic. “We weren't sure you'd made it. … Hell, we weren't sure you were going to make it. Sorry I couldn't call before. We lost long range communications in the attack. Is this a bad time to say I told you so?”

“That you did, Number One. I'll try to keep it in mind in future. I'm sure we can work out some sort of docking arrangements, if you don't have power for transporters. The Normandy drive core won't be enough to power the entire ship, but it'll be enough to keep everyone alive, and for us to send out a message.”

“Roger that, Captain. Just give us a minute to clear the shuttles. Whatever the hell runs that thing, our containment shields can't handle it yet. Hence the lack of a warp core. We'll have to get that fixed before we can get very far.”

“Acknowledged. Picard out.”

Tali

Tali could hardly keep herself from bouncing when it was her turn to walk down the umbilical between the Normandy and the Enterprise. A whole new ship! Sure it was one built by crazy people, but still, just looking through the observation lounge window, it was like no ship she'd ever seen before. It almost made her wish she was back on her pilgrimage again.

As she crossed into the other ship, there was a red headed woman there to greet her, wearing what looked like some sort of lab coat.

“Welcome to the Enterprise E. My name is Doctor Crusher. I'd just like to ask you a few questions about your medical needs before you go on, okay?”

“Oh, keelah... are you serious?” It seemed like there was nowhere Tali could go to escape the constant worrying about her health, like she had only just minutes ago become a Quarian and didn't know how to look after herself.

Beverly smiled gently. “I get the feeling from your suit you probably get that one a lot, huh? I'm asking all the aliens, don't worry. I've never seen your species before. If something goes horribly wrong, I want to know at least a little about how to treat you. Be glad you're not Shepard. She's still in medbay. There's a whole team of doctors and engineers checking her over.”

“She came onto your ship six hours ago!”

“Which is why I'm talking to you here and not in med-bay. I was only too happy to leave. I swear, captains are all the same.”

Tali fidgeted slightly and tried not to show her discomfort, which was fairly easy with her mask. She'd found aliens to be fairly poor at reading Quarian body language, as they were from different cultures, and tended to be more concerned with faces. In any case, she knew that most other cultures were a lot more casual when it came to commenting on a captain. Not that she was uncritical of the Migrant Fleet captains, or that no one ever said anything bad of them. It just wasn't something you said unless you knew someone really rather well, and could be sure they wouldn't get offended.

“Anyway, I'll need to see you in med-bay later on, but for now, there are some things to clear up for basic aid and living. Mr. Vakarian reported he had a dextro-amino structure, for example--”

“Ah! Yes, of course, that's something you'd need to know about. Quarians are dextro based as well. In fact, we often eat Turian food when we can, because... well you're a doctor, I'm sure I don't have to explain.”

Beverly nodded. “Okay, we've never encountered dextro-species here, so don't eat any of the food for a while. Fortunately Chief O'Brien is here visiting everyone for a few months and he assures me it won't be hard to program the replicators for dextro food. I'll let you know as soon as you can use them.”

Tali nodded, feeling a little too awkward to ask what a replicator was. She'd ask someone else later, she was sure the doctor didn't want to explain the tech. Picard had loaned her his communicator to talk to the Chief Engineer here, in order to hook up the ships though. She looked forward to speaking with him again.

“Any allergies?”

“Basically everything. Quarians have very weak immune systems and are very sensitive to contamination. It's actually shorter to list what medicine is safe to use.”

“And that would be?”

Tali opened one of the tubular containers on the arm of her suit and pulled out a piece of paper filled with long, unpronounceable chemical names.

“Here. All Quarians have something like this on them, in case of medical emergency on an alien world.”

The doctor copied it down quickly on her datapad. “Perfect, thank you. I assume if anything happens, you'll need to be treated in a completely sterile environment, yes?”

Tali nodded, glad she didn't have to explain it all. It was reassuring to know there was a doctor about who wasn't a total idiot in regard to Quarians. It was sadly rare. “That's exactly right. Filtered air, no physical contact with anyone.”

“I'll make sure something is set up then. I'm not anticipating any problems of course, but--”

“It's all right, doctor, I understand. It's a good thing. Doctor Chakwas has some medical files on me as well. I know it wouldn't include basic information on Quarians, it assumes you know all that, but...”

Crusher nodded. “I plan to have a very long talk with her later. I'd still like to do scans of everyone at some point though. Technically even your humans are aliens here. Best to be safe.”

Tali nodded slightly. Interactions with aliens were hard. She found she had to exaggerate her movements. She already felt her body language was out in the open for everyone to see. Exaggerated it felt like... well probably how a human would feel being asked to pull a big cheesy smile. It was either that or just say exactly what she was feeling, which she also had to do sometimes.

Worse was that they tried to look at her face all the time. They knew they couldn't see it, but that's just where aliens look for a reaction. They couldn't seem to help it, even with a mask. Tali tried to learn how to smile with her eyes in the past, but Garrus had called the look “Crazy axe murderer eyes” so she'd had to abandon that. Although she had learned how to effectively express anger through eyes alone, to the point where even Jack took a step back on seeing it.

“I know I'm probably supposed to go see my quarters first but... is there any chance you could point me towards main engineering?”

“Oh... well... usually that's something of a restricted area. Not that we don't trust you, but...”

“Commander LaForge invited me to see it.”

“Oh! Well, in that case, you'd be better off asking the computer. It can give you directions via the wall panels, and show you to the turbolift. It's voice activated, by the way. Apparently Garrus had some trouble figuring out how it worked...”

A ship's computer? Not very standard in most ships. Of course they had computer systems, and lots of them, but a single central computer... the only one she knew of was the Normandy.

“What's it called?” Tali said.

Crushed looked confused for a brief moment. “Oh, just preface your query with 'Computer.' It's not named or anything.”

“Gotcha. Uh... Computer? Could you show me to main engineering?”

The computer gave a flat little “Affirmative” and lit a path for her to follow along the wall.

Tali wasn't entirely sure what to make of the ship. She knew she liked it, that was for sure. Everything seemed sleek, and perfected, without looking sterile. Besides that, the ship seemed absolutely huge. In truth, just about every ship in the flotilla was larger, and the Destiny Accession was a few orders of magnitude larger, at least. But no ship she had ever seen was this careless about its space. The hallways were almost large enough to walk three abreast. Three humans! Maybe four quarians. It seemed like all the practical aspects of ship design, like minimizing space to allow for easier air circulation, or communal eating spaces, had been ignored.

Walking past an open door, it seemed that every individual crew member had their own quarters, with their own dining spaces. Maybe not quite as large as Shepard's quarters on the Normandy, but... she was the captain. She didn't like to be called the captain, as it wasn't her official rank. But she commanded the ship. To Tali, that made her the captain. Here though, it looked like everyone lived like a captain. She was a little anxious to see her own quarters now. Even on the Normandy, she'd preferred to just hang a hammock in engineering, and be glad she didn't have to use the showers like everyone else.

Eventually she made her way into the elevator, but realized she didn't know what deck she wanted.

“Er... main engineering? Please?”

Tali squeaked slightly as the elevator raced off. In all honesty, she'd barely felt it move. It seemed to have its own inertial dampers. … Which was good, because, given the rate it seemed to be going from the hints of light she could see outside, she'd be stuck on the ceiling otherwise.

“The citadel could do with installing some of these,” she muttered to herself as she stepped out, mere moments later, on reaching her destination. The elevator had deposited her very close to Engineering, and Tali suspected it may have moved sideways at some point on her journey. In any case, the double doors to main engineering fairly obvious.

Tali felt her jaw drop as she walked in.

“This is...”

“Not running the way it's supposed to be,” Geordi said. Tali took note of his cybernetic eyes as he walked up. They gave him an unfortunate resemblance to the Illusive Man.

“It's huge... I've never... Keelah...”

“Just you wait until we get a warp core again, and this place will be buzzing” Geordi said. “But, yeah, it has to be pretty big, all of the major ship functions come through here. Even without the warp core, there's a lot of work to be done.”

“Where I'm from, we have to patch our engines together with whatever we can find... Working with the Normandy was a major change of pace, but this...”

Geordi gave her a warm smile. 'C'mon. I'll give you the full tour. We're going to need your help integrating the Normandy's systems into ours. And adjusting our containment systems to deal with... well I don't even know what it is your engine is putting out.”

Tali nodded, feeling like her neck was going to get sore very quickly. Everywhere she turned there was something new and amazing to see. She could barely keep her focus on one object long enough to take it in before yet another miracle showed up somewhere else. She followed Geordi slowly as he started to show her what all the various consoles did. One thing was clear, the Enterprise had a lot more automated and computer run systems than the Normandy did. Tali wasn't sure how she felt about that, but it did make it so that almost any function on the ship could have at least some work done on it from this one massive room.

“You uh... we should get Ken and Gabby set up here before we start any major work. They're technically working under me on the Normandy. And Kenneth is actually the one in charge of the power systems specifically.”

“I'd be more than happy to get your whole team up here. If you've got anyone who understands particle physics. How does your engine work, anyway?” Geordi said.

“In our universe we have a thing called element zero. You can use it to create a thing called a mass effect field. What it does is it lowers the apparent mass of an object--”

“Allow you to bypass the light speed barrier, and the tyranny of the rocket equation in one go.” Geordi finished. “That's very impressive.”

“Exactly!” Tali bounced slightly on the balls of her feet. She'd never met anyone who grasped the concept that quickly. Sure, Geordi was an engineer, but his ship functioned on completely different principles.

“So, what was probably happening was that the mass effect field from your engines was altering the apparent mass of the anti-matter in our warp core, which was causing it to slip out of the containment fields.”

Tali nodded. “Of course! Which means you shouldn't let Shepard, Liara, Samara, Thane, Jack, or Miranda near any of the containment units on the shuttles until we work out how to fix it. They're all biotics. It means they can create mass effect fields.”

“Right... I bet that's going to make Dr. Crusher's day. In any case, let me go ahead and show you to EPS conduits that provide most of the power to various sections of the ship. We might as well at least get the ball rolling on how we're going to integrate these systems.”

Dr. Crusher

“...If trying the phosphoramidite method, naturally occurring nucleotides and phosphodiester analogs are insufficiently reactive. Problematic. But can increase formation of internucleosidic linkages significantly by using nucleoside phosphoramidites! Serve as building blocks in phosphite triester methodology. Risk of unintended side effects. Must render all other functional groups inactive by attaching protective groups. Can be removed after completion of oligonucleotide chain assembly. Thymine, uracil, nucleic bases of thymidine, uridine, lack exocyclic amino groups. Do not require protection--”

“Dr. Solus!” Dr. Crusher interrupted, finally giving up on waiting for a pause in the rather one sided conversation, after fifteen solid minutes without break. “This is all very interesting, but when I called down to your ship, it was the Normandy doctor I wanted to talk to.”

“Am doctor. Ran clinic on Omega. Currently on Normandy. That would make me Normandy Doctor. Must have meant Chakwas. Am perfectly capable of handling patients though. All seem to go to Chakwas. One exception. Reminds me, as physician to another, watch for signs of hypochondria with Yeoman Chambers. Came to me, complaining of feeling of heavy weight on chest, feelings of heat in nether regions. Examination showed nothing wrong. Offered to help study human reproductive anatomy after. Don't get too excited. Not genuine offer for research trials. Turned out to be crude sexual advance. When offering to probe, be sure to make clear probes are for purely scientific purposes. Avoid mutual disappointment. Chakwas does have medical files on most patients. Alliance doctor, however. Competent in xenobiology but not optimal choice for learning to treat other species. Best choice is still me. Not vanity, just truth. Ran clinic on Omega. Humans, batarians, turians, etc. More experienced. Good I came up. Might as well start with Salarian. Obviously species I have most expertise with. Except maybe Krogan. In any case, basic structure of Salarian proteins very similar to human...”


	3. Chapter 3

_Captain's Log, Stardate 53539.7: With the Normandy's power system finally integrated into the Entperise, we have been able to make contact with Starfleet. A replacement warp core is en route. In the meantime, we finally have enough power to run the brig forcefields, allowing for interrogation of the Romulan prisoner at last._

Picard

“Donatra. Commander. Serial Number TM-387-696.”

“What were you doing in Federation space?”

“Donatra. Commander. Serial Number TM-387-696.”

“Why did you fire on the Enterprise?”

“Donatra. Commander. Serial Number TM-387-696.”

The Romulan woman glared defiantly at Picard through the forcefield of her cell. In all honestly, that was better than Picard had anticipated. He wouldn't have put a suicide pill past her, although Dr. Solus had assured him she was clear of both cyanide and something called an ocular nerve flashbang, which Picard had been afraid to ask about.

“Explaining to me exactly what happened is the only change we have at preventing all-out war, do you understand?”

A globule of Romulan spit hissed against the forefield. “If you wanted to stop a war, Picard, you shouldn't have lured my ship into an ambush!”

“You flew a cloaked vessel across the neutral zone in direct violation of the treaty of Algeron,” Picard said. “And you fired first. Those are the facts of the matter. From that perspective, I’d say the ambush was on your part.”

“Our instruments showed us to be investigating an anomaly on the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone,” Donatra said. “A Federation spy must have tampered with our navigation systems. When we arrived, we found the Federation flagship and what appeared to be an experimental Human combat ship waiting in what we believed to be Romulan space. So, yes, we fired first.”

Picard did not bother to claim the Normandy as being from another universe. He doubted very much that he would have believed it in her shoes, and the English lettering on the hull put it beyond any doubt as being from Earth origin. They did have members of new life forms on board, but the Romulans could easily claim those were just species that the Federation had recently made first contact with. Or, God forbid, “Uplifted” as the term seemed to be. He still couldn’t believe what had happened to the Krogan. The Prime Directive was a tricky thing, and he’d had to play a little fast and loose with it himself at times, but if he’d ever had any doubt that the idea at its heart was sound, he need only think of the Krogan. 

Honesty may still be the best policy. As long as the... less believable parts of the Normandy's story were glossed over for now.

“Whatever fault you may have had in your navigation system was not the result of my vessel,” Picard said.

Donatra stood up and walked to the very edge of the forcefield. “You're not saying that it wasn't introduced into our system by your government. Will your precious honor not let you lie, Picard? Not even if your Federation depends on it?”

“You are absolutely correct,” Picard said evenly. “I make no claim to the actions of the Federation, especially where your people are involved. If this was part of some… scheme, by your government or mine, however, we have the opportunity to expose it now, and end this before it begins.”

Donatra tilted her head slightly. “I'm impressed. I was expecting a big speech full of lies about how the Federation would never dream of violating a treaty, always perfect and squeaky clean. I can see why you're still a captain. The other admirals must still be angry about the Pegasus incident. Imagine what a spanner in the works you'd be if they couldn't keep you in the dark.”

Picard refused to believe that what had happened with the Pegasus was common knowledge. The Pegasus had been equipped with an illegal transphasic cloak, which Picard had been forced to revel to the Romulans. Their own attempts at making one had been a disaster though. They'd never own up to admitting the Federation had ever bested them at their own game.

“You were on the Tarix. You saw the Pegasus decloak,” Picard said. 

Donatra grinned. “First officer. When word got back to the Senate about what you'd done, I was given by own command. With the specific mission of keeping an eye on you. Why do you still work for your Federation, Picard? You can’t even look me in the eye and say your people didn’t do this. That’s not a lot of faith in them.”

“I don’t believe humanity is perfect,” Picard said. “Just that we’re trying to overcome our faults. By extension, I don’t believe the Federation is perfect. But I do believe it can overcome its faults. The reason I am critical of the Federation is because I am loyal to it. If you know so much about me, you should know that.”

Donatra paced back and forth in her cell, though her eyes didn't leave Picard. “You can't blame a woman for trying.”

“You were given your own ship for the express purpose of spying on the Federation, but how much have you really learned, flying around the neutral zone, cloaked? It'd be more effective to send another operative disguised as a Vulcan. Your command makes more sense if they had ulterior motives for you. Your ship is a D'deridex class Warbird. Would it have made more sense to move you to the harder to detect Valdore class as soon as it was available?”

Donatra stopped cold. “The Valdore class has not been revealed outside the Empire yet.”

“You admit to being a spy,” Picard said. “So the concept of someone finding out classified information should be familiar to you.”

“As are a great deal of other things, Picard. For example, I’m familiar with enhanced interrogation techniques. You learned a few from Gul Madred, didn’t you? I suppose this is the point where you show them to me.”

Now it was Picard's turn to freeze. It wasn't all that surprising that she knew about his torture at the hands of Gul Madred, particularly given the Romulan's cooperation in fighting the Cardassians and the Dominion in the war. Still it was an effort not to show she'd gotten to him.

“It's been a long time. Looking back on it, are you sure there were four lights Picard? Are you positive you weren't just being insolent? When you think back on it, how many lights do you see?”

Nearly a full minute of silence passed, with Commander Denatra still staring down Picard.

“All right,” Picard said quietly. “If you really don’t want to respond to me, perhaps you’d prefer to talk to someone else.”

Tali

“... Dextro amino based chocolate?” Tali said breathlessly, thinking this was too good to be true.

The computer beeped unpleasantly. “Error in conversion program. Please try another item.”

Tali sighed. “All right, fine. … Dextro ice cream.”

“Specify flavor.”

“Uh...” Turians didn't eat ice cream, and Quarians didn't keep livestock for dairy. Tali had never even considered ice cream enough of a possibility to contemplate a flavor, or even be sure what the options were. The fact it was asking for a flavor instead of spitting out an error was promising though. “Mint?”

“Error in conversion program. Please try another item.”

“Bosh'tet!”

The replicator produced what appeared to be some sort of alien eel, which was cut down the middle to show that it hadn't been gutted, and the stomach appeared to contain another small fish. It had been fried in some sort of sickly looking gunk. Tali turned off the olfactory filters on her suit very quickly.

“Computer, what IS that?!”

“Bohsteht, a Klingon delicacy creating by slicing open a breed of eel unique to Qo'noS, that feeds by eating other aquatic species alive and whole. The dish is prepared by catching the eel immediately after feeding, and slicing it open, and frying the eel in its own blood. Traditionally it is cooked in such a way as to leave the smaller fish alive during consumpt--”

“Enough! Get rid of it!”

The horrid thing vanished, though Tali wasn't ready to turn her olfactory filters on just yet. For the first time in her life, she almost wished for an AI. At least that would understand the difference between swearing and a food order.

Tali sighed and tapped at the badge now affixed to her suit. They had all been given one to facilitate communication, even when they were on the Normandy, and away from the Enterprise's wall panels. “Geordi? Er... Zorah to LaForge?”

She heard him laugh slightly. “Yeah, I'm here. Don't worry too much about getting the protocol right. The computer is pretty intelligent about knowing who you want to call. We just keep a standard protocol so that we can positive we'll get through properly in an emergency.”

“Right. Sorry. I'm used to just... well I'm not used to everything being operated by voice, normally I can just select a contact and call-- Right, anyway, you asked me to let you know if there were still problems with the replicator. It's only giving out dextro food about half the time...”

“I'll be right up. LaForge out.”

“You don't have to stop what you're doing just to...” Tali sighed realising the call was already cut. There was plenty of food the replicator was putting out now, it wasn't as if she was starving. It certainly wasn't worth bothering the chief engineer about. In honesty, she'd love for nothing more than to pull off the wall panel and start trying to fix it herself, but she got the impression that would probably be frowned on. Even on the fleet, it was considered rude to start fixing someone else's ship without invitation.

… Her manners had always been a little deficient in that regard. Her fingers started to twitch slightly as the looked at the maintenance panel.

“Just a little look... I won't touch anything...” the said to herself quietly as she reached out for the panel. “I'll just... take it off for when Geordi gets here, and--”

She jumped slightly as the door chime beeped at her and snapped her hands away from the panel. “Come in!”

Geordi walked in, carrying a small toolbox. Tali had forgotten just how swift the elevators were here.“Sorry about this. It shouldn't be that complicated to get the replicator to just mirror the proteins in a given food. If I didn't know any better, I'd say O'Brien messed it up on purpose.”

Tali watched as Geordi pulled off the panel by the replicator. She tried not to hover over his shoulder too much.

“Why would he do something like that?”

“O'Brien was the transporter chief on the old Enterprise. He transferred to Deep Space Nine a few years before it was destroyed, and he basically kept the entire place running by himself. He basically came over on leave with Commander Worf. Technically it’s an exchange thing, so he’s working here for a few weeks or so, but for him it’s practically a vacation. I'm sure he'll be happy to go back, but as long as there's a problem with the replicators here, he has an excuse to stay a little longer. I'm sure he did the best job he could though.”

Tali nodded slightly, keeping her eyes fixed on what Geordi was doing to the inside of the panel and making mental notes on how everything worked. It was a few moments before the full weight of what Geordi said had processed.

“I'm... sorry to hear about your ship.”

“Yeah...” said Geordi, shining some sort of odd light on one of the chips. “The Enterprise E is a good ship. Technologically superior to the Enterprise D in almost every way. But... much as I love her, I think the Enterprise D is always going to be my girl, you know?”

Tali nodded slightly. “Yeah, I know. … Where I'm from, when you come of age, you move to a new ship. It's sort of like... moving out of your parent's house. But as impressive as the Neema's engines were... and the Normandy's, there's never going to be another drive core like the Rayya's.”

She took another moment to process.

“Wait a minute, you said Enterprise E and D. … I thought the E at the end of the registration was just a random letter designation. You lost four ships?!”

Geordi laughed. “No, no, it's nothing like that! The Enterprise is a... a legacy ship, if you will. The original Enterprise was basically the defining ship of the Federation. Every flagship after has had the same name and registry number. In actuality, there were five Enterprises before this one. The first one didn't have a letter, so the one after that was the Enterprise A.”

“And they were all destroyed?”

“No, most were retired from service. Although the original Enterprise has the distinction of being the only starship in history to be destroyed in action AFTER it was officially retired from service. The Enterprise A was retired after about seven years, out of respect for Captain Kirk's retirement. He commanded both that ship and the original Enterprise, you see. No one had the heart to have someone take over for him. So instead they launched the Enterprise B with a new crew. That one got turned into a museum and memorial when it was retired. The Enterprise C was lost in the line of duty, defending a Klingon outpost against a Romulan attack. And the Enterprise D... we got hit by a photon torpedo at the same frequency as our shields. Slipped right though, we lost containment on the core.”

“I'm sorry...”

Geordi smiled again, but even Tali could read faces well enough to know it was a bittersweet one at best. “Well, you know... all good things come to an end, right? And there were hardly any casualties. The Enterprise D... You've never seen a ship so well designed. The saucer half and the engineering half were usually one integrated system, right? The thing could isolate the systems, split in two, and have both sections operate completely independently at the drop of a hat. You didn't even have to rewire anything.”

“That's...” Tali didn't know how the ships worked very well, but that didn't stop her from having genuine amazement. “That's outstanding. I can hardly even imagine...”

“I still have the old schematics. I can show you how it was laid out sometime.”

“Yes! I... I mean thank you, that sounds very nice.”

Geordi made one final adjustment and then closed the panel. “This one should be working. I'll have to do the same thing to Garrus's. It's, uh, it's gonna take about six hours for the computer to work out the new pathways though, so it won't work at all until then. You can still get whatever dextro food the unpatched replicators can provide from ten-forward though.”

“Ten forward?”

“It's our bar and lounge area. Front end of the ship, middle of the saucer section. It's as far forward as you can go, and the view is amazing. It's actually the front section of deck 11, but we kept the name from the old Enterprise.”

Tali nodded slightly.

“Or...” Geordi shook his head. “Nah. Ten-Forward is your best bet.”

“Or what, Commander?” Tali asked.

“... Or you could have dinner in my quarters.”

Jack

Jack's back was starting to ache. The damn ship may have been full of smiling little sycophants, but at least they had the decency to build a tiny cramped tube system for hiding in.

Jack almost held her breath to keep silent as she heard footsteps come in, and then the most horrible sound in the galaxy. A sound that promised nothing but pain and endless torment.

“Jack?” Troi said, walking just past the entrance to Jack's hiding place. “Jack, I can sense you here. It really isn't good to keep all these feelings bottled up. Why don't you come out and we can talk?”

Fucking Starfleet cheerleader.

Worf

“There is nothing more precious to a Klingon than his honor,” Worf said proudly. “A Klingon would rather die than to go against his code.”

The blue skinned alien smiled softly. “It is nice to find someone who understands. I too live by a code. It is... one that sometimes compels me to harsh action. Most people are troubled by it.”

“Harsh action?”

“Harsh, but just.” Her pale blue eyes had a somewhat uncomfortable way of looking at Worf like she was unconsciously sizing up his abilities in a fight. Something about them made Worf less than comfortable in his ability to win that fight if it should happen. Yet somehow they also seemed to be looking through him, in a way similar to the way Guinan seemed to look at people. It was as if through the benefit of age, she could see more than anyone meant to show her. She didn't appear to be any older than a human in their forties. But appearances could be very deceiving. “Those who prey on the weak and the defenseless are shown no mercy.”

“Nor should they be! They are without honor!” Worf actually figured the woman was more interested in protecting the weak. Which was nice enough, he supposed, though not exactly the Klingon way, even if the end result was somewhat similar.

“I suppose not,” she said. “Not that it matters anyway. My code is about serving justice. It has no room for interpretation. Those it defines as being in the wrong will meet justice. The rest have nothing to fear. Honor isn't considered.”

“I like it. … There is a holodeck nearby. Perhaps we could learn from each other in the ways of battle.”

The woman smiled again, very softly. It was less a real smile and more of a way to express approval. “I think I'd like that, Mr. Worf.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Captain's Log, Supplemental: It seems that Romulan intelligence on the Federation is better than we had anticipated. While I believe that Commander Donatra's casual approach to relieving what she knows may have been a tactical error on her part, it has made it difficult to attempt to reason with her. Fortunately, I have access to a large number of personnel who she has no information regarding whatsoever._

Shepard

The Romulans were a very strange species.

It wasn't because they had green blood, or pointy ears. In a way it was because of that. They were weird because their green blood and pointy ears seemed to be the only thing that separated them from humans.

Shepard wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. She'd always had an easy time accepting that alien creatures were truly alien, that they didn't always think the way humans did, because they didn't look like humans. Even the asari, the most humanoid species Shepard had seen, looked more alien than this.

At least, Shepard thought asari were humanoid. Every species seemed to find asari looked rather like them. It was... somewhat disconcerting. 

Shepard tried to clear the thought from her head and focus on the task at hand.

“Let me guess,” Donatra said. “Section 31?”

Donatra said it with a confident smirk, but Shepard could tell it was hiding confusion. Her eyes kept flitting towards the N7 logo on Shepard's armor, and the red stripe on her arm. She was doing a good job of trying to hide it, but the symbols seemed to be confusing her.

“Never heard of them,” Shepard said. She couldn't help but smile as a more visible shadow of confusion flitted over Donatra's face. 

“Nice touch,” Kelly's voice whispered in her ear. “Unless this species has different expressions than humans do, I'd say she doesn't believe that you, but is perturbed at how well you tell the lie.”

Shepard didn't nod, or do anything to acknowledge Kelly. It was a little hard, trying to pretend like you couldn't hear someone while listening to them, but she had done a few covert operations before, it wasn't new to her. She'd actually have to thank Kelly later for suggesting she wear her armor to the interrogation. Shepard had assumed it was just for intimidation, but she soon realized, in addition to the intimidation factor, it added in more confusion. Starfleet didn't seem to wear armor. Shepard had seen one of the Romulan's energy weapons vaporize solid metal, so she imagined armour afforded little protection, and hampered mobility.

“I'm Commander Shepard. N7. That means Special Forces, top tier. The captain of this ship has given you over to me. Interestingly, he also seems to have turned off a lot of the normal security systems here. Cameras, audio... Almost like he doesn't want to know what I'm going to do with you.”

“The Federation doesn't torture,” Donatra said. “It's too hard to give condescending lectures on ethics over the screams.”

“You heard of N7 before?”

Donatra glared in response.

“That’s ‘cause I’m not Federation,” Shepard said. “So their rules don’t mean an awful lot to me.”

“All right,” said Donatra eventually. “Let's get started then. I recommend starting with electrical shock. I can’t stand them. Should loosen me up to break my resistance to whatever else you have planned.”

“Okay,” Kelly said. “She's calling your bluff. You need to try and find a way to save face. … Ultimately we want her to cooperate with Picard, he doesn't think she has anything to confess, so that makes it harder.”

“Okay,” Shepard said, trying to absorb what Kelly was saying and talk at the same time. “You caught me. I'm not actually the one who does the torture.”

Donatra smirked.

“Lemme go get the one who does the torture.”

Shepard walked out of the brig and over to the room where Kelly was watching the monitors.

“Got a recommendation, Kelly?”

“Well, she's too smart not to recognize most standard techniques,” said Kelly. “But the basic principles might still work. I'm thinking something like good cop, bad cop.”

Shepard frowned. “Isn't that a little cliché?”

“Like good cop, bad cop. Not the same. I'd call it more... sane cop, crazy cops,” Kelly said.

“That’s the sort of professional way to describe mental illness I expect to hear from my Counselor,” Shepard said.

“The point is, you confuse her. She's trying to read things off you, your clothing, the logos, that sort of thing, and it's not anything she understands or has information about. At the same time, it's too detailed to look like a fabrication, so she'd not sure what to do with it.”

Shepard nodded. “Even I could see it in a few places. And Picard's problem was she knew too much about him. She felt too much on the high ground to listen.”

Kelly grinned. “Which is the beauty of good cop, crazy cops. Picard was normal…”

“Whereas I confuse the hell out of her,” said Shepard.

“Bingo. After some time with us, Picard will be a welcome island of sanity and understandability in a crazy world. So... who do you want to introduce her to?”

“I was thinking Liara,” said Shepard. “Asari can be confusing just by their nature, until you get used to them, after all.”

“Interesting,” Kelly said, taking a moment look through her pads. “I don't know Donatra's sexual orientation, so being attracted to a woman may be nothing unusual for her. But from what I’ve been told the Romulans are very closeted in general. Xenophobic as a culture. Sexual attraction to an alien would be confusing, and... well she is an Asari. And pretty. You mentioned she's a little... harsher than she used to be. It'd provide another contrast to her appearance.”

“Huh,” Shepard said, wondering slightly if Kelly's recommendation might be slightly skewed by her lifestyle. It seemed very much like Kelly to bring up sex in any situation... even if it was an interrogation. “Confused by sexual attraction to an alien... Maybe I should send you in.”

Kelly folded her arms and adopted a posture of mock scorn that was somewhat unconvincing given her massive grin. “Does Liara know you flirt with me like that?”

“Lemme think about that one... does the Shadow Broker know, or not know something... Hmmm... yeah, I'm gonna go with she knows. Plus, we talked about it. She’s fine if I mess with your head. She’s… less fine about the whole Garrus thing.”

“Well? Go and fetch her, you big tease.”

Shepard reached into her spare ammunition pocket and fished out the combadge she'd been given. She'd had to take it off when she put her armor on, but she'd wanted to keep it close.

“Shepard to T'Soni, your prescience is requested in the brig.”

“... The Enterprise brig, or is this... part of some game, and you mean your Normandy quarters?”

Kelly snorted rather audibly.

Liara sighed over the combadge. “I really hate that these things don't have any other mode beside speakerphone.”

Shepard shrugged, which was rather pointless over the combadge. “You've seen these people. Everyone here is so wholesome I doubt anyone wanting a private conversation has ever crossed their minds.”

“We need your help on an interrogation,” Kelly said. “Do you have any commando leathers? Or really anything else that looks kind of authoritarian would do.”

Shepard had to admit, if the idea was to be so weird at Donatra she'd be willing to cooperate with Picard... well her crew were the right ones for the job...

“Are you SURE this isn't part of some game, Shepard?” said Liara.

“Not that sort of game, we're trying to confuse the Romulan we captured. Kelly seems to think her being... attracted to you will help. A pretty face and an intimidating--”

“But sexy!” Kelly shouted at the badge.

“--outfit might aid in the confusion. Or Kelly just wants to see you in commando leathers.”

“I'll make a stop by one of the larger replicators and see what I can do,” said Liara. “But only because you said I was pretty. T'Soni out.”

It was some time before Liara showed up. Which was fine by Shepard. Leaving Donatra to wait and think a while didn't seem like a bad move.

Shepard had to admit when Liara walked in, it had certainly been worth the wait. Liara had managed to get the replicator to reproduce Asari commando gear with a fair bit of accuracy. In spite of the appeal Kelly was thinking of, the gear did have a rather harsh look to it as well, and Kelly had been right about the way it clashed with her face. Shepard still remembered watching her threaten to flay someone alive. Zaeed making threats with his messed up face was one thing. Seeing a face like Liara’s make threats, and make them with conviction was somehow more terrifying. It was like you got the feeling someone who looked like that wouldn’t even try unless they actually meant it. 

“I reviewed the footage of your interrogation so far while I was waiting in line at the replicator,” Liara said. “So you don't have to fill me in on where you left off. How far do you want this to go?”

“Just bring your Still-Unpaid-Information-Broker persona from Illium, and not your Help-I'm-In-A-Bubble one, and everything should go fine,” Shepard said.

“It was a Prothean energy device,” said Liara. “But fine. That shouldn't be a problem.”

Shepard watched Liara put in an earbud so she could hear Kelly's comments on the situation, and headed for the brig. This wasn't going to be a good time for anyone. Except maybe Kelly. Still, she sat down next to Kelly and kept an eye on the monitor. She watched as Liara walked into the room and just started to stare at Donatra.

“I know it's not really my business but... are you and Liara okay, Shepard?” Kelly said while they waited. 

“I don't know. I was... fairly persistent with continuing the relationship when we rescued Feron, and I wouldn't change that. But... well, she was half right when she said we were two different people now.”

“Only half right?” Kelly said.

Shepard watched the staring contest between the archeologist, and the seasoned Romulan military commander, without absolutely no doubt that the Romulan's will would break first.

“She's a different person. She had two years to grow and change. … I was too busy being dead. Besides what knowing you spent two years as a smear does to you, I'm pretty much the same. Maybe if I'd changed with her...”

“You don't like her as much as the Liara you used to know?” Kelly said, very quietly.

“No! God no! Hell, in a lot of ways, I'm really proud of her. But... in a lot of other ways...” Shepard sighed. “You never knew her before. She was... I don't know. Innocent, I guess. She's a lot of wonderful things now, but innocent isn't one of them. … Much as it means she's grown, I kind of feel like I killed off a part of her that should have stayed.”

“I read her background” said Kelly. “She was very sheltered for over a hundred years. In university on Thessia, one of the most prosperous planets in the galaxy. Staying away from people, staying in academia... The more innocent someone is, the more it toughens them when they lose it, and she had a lot of innocence to lose. The rest of the galaxy isn't like a Thessian university.”

“I put a gun in her hand, and asked her to kill for me,” Shepard said. “The rest of the galaxy isn’t like that either.”

Kelly kept her voice soft. “She'd had to defend herself before, remember? Remote digs and the like. She'd killed before.”

“I died, okay!? She took a chance in caring about me, in loving me, and I...” Shepard sighed again, trying to calm down. “I just... I can't believe that the larger part of her optimism didn't die at the same time I did. She invested a lot in me, and suddenly it was all ripped away without warning. She had two years to let those wounds heal and reopen, and callous over. Everything I ever did, N7, the Alliance, Cerberus, everything, was to try and save people from having to get callous like that, and then I went and did it to her.”

“How does she feel about all this?”

“... She doesn't know,” Shepard said. “I... I still wasn't sure how I felt back when... well after the Shadow Broker's lair. We've been apart most of the time sense then, but... It's really hard to keep secrets when your girlfriend is Asari. They tend to get in your head. And now that I'm running out of disasters, she's going to start wondering why I won't... bed her.”

“... Are you seriously using euphemisms with me, Shepard?” Kelly shook her head. “Well maybe that's a good thing. You two need to talk about this. Work it out as best as you can with words, then fuck until you're on the same page mentally, and move on with your lives.”

Shepard couldn't help a small smile. “You know, Kelly, it's times like these where you really help me to realize… you didn’t actually say how advanced your psychology degree was, or if you had any qualifications or… really anything…”

Kelly laughed and shoved her gently. “You don't want her to find out how you feel when she's trying to have fun in your brain, so you can't 'bed her' until you talk it out. Look at those leathers and tell me you don't want to get to work talking it out as soon as possible.”

“You know, you're ogling my girlfriend right in front of me, right Chambers?”

“There's only two asari in this entire universe,” Kelly said. “So you're just gonna have to learn to live with that. I am not giving up asari ogling.”

“Did you want something?” Donatra's voice sounded slightly tinny, even over the Enterprise's high tech speaker technology, as she finally broke.

“I wanted to watch you give up first,” Liara said, in her slightly airy tone, usually reserved for playful sarcasm. “Thank you.”

“Great. You won a staring contest. You must be proud. Bye now,” Donatra said.

“Oh no,” said Liara. “Now we get down to business.” Her voice had dropped into her slightly deeper, much more threatening tone on the last word.

“You uh... you mentioned she was upset about Garrus?” said Kelly, not taking her eyes off the screen.

“Yeah... she's... understandably jealous that we.... uh...”

“Fucked.”

“If you insist. But she does understand that... well it was a confusing time for both of us, and even she considered us as... not together at that point. It's just... well I understand why she's jealous. She assures me that she just needs some time to let it run its course.”

“Is this really all the Commander has?” said Donatra. “A blue dominatrix as her torturer?”

Liara biotically snatched up a glass coffee mug, left behind by the security officer who was normally on duty, and crushed it into a ball of glass shards before sending them all shooting at Donatra's face. Even with the forcefield making her perfectly safe, Donatra took a reflexive step back.

“I... really hope that jealousy thing does run its course in time...” Shepard said.

“Well... if it doesn't, and you don't make it, I will do my best to be as respectful of your memory as I can. But I'm still going to be all over her if I get half a chance. Even if your body isn't cold yet,” Kelly said.  
“... Thanks, Kelly. I'm glad to know you'd sleep with my murderer.”

Kelly just flashed her most charming smile and turned on the mic to Liara. “T'Soni, Shepard nearly wet herself, and she wasn't even in the same room. You're doing great, keep it up.” She turned off the microphone her smile changed to an almost evil one. “You know what'd really throw her for a loop? After Liara's done, and Donatra thinks she knows how it is with us, we should send in Tali and just have her be herself.”

Tali

Tali paced back and forth outside Geordi's door, clutching the bottle of wine she was holding in one hand, occasionally almost reaching out to touch the doorbell with her other.

“Don't be stupid,” she said to herself, after making sure the audio link on her helmet was off, so one else could hear her. “Of course it's supposed to be a date, why else would he have hesitated like that...”

She paced a little more.

“Unless he was just hesitating because he knew it would sound like a date, and he didn't want it to, so he wasn't sure how to say it. But... I mean, maybe, even if was doing that, it was because he didn't want to be forward. It's just one date, it doesn't mean anything... it's just to test things out and see if it might work out, right? But what if he really didn't want a date? What if he doesn't like aliens? I can't even drink this wine, I'm going to look so stupid and--”

Troi pressed the doorbell without breaking stride as she rushed past.

“Jack!” her voice sounded as she went down the corridor. “Come back! This is my job, we should talk!”

Tali just stood there, frozen to the spot while the door opened.

“Oh! Tali. I wasn't sure if you were going to... I mean, I'm glad you did. Did you find the room all right?”

Tali nodded. “Y-yes. I found it just fine. I... uh...”

Geordi frowned. “... Tali? You okay?”

“Yes! Of course I'm... “ with a dawning horror, Tali realised she'd never turned her helmet audio back on. She desperately keyed the command into her omni-tool.

“Yes!” she said as soon as it was on. “Sorry! I was talking, but the microphone in the helmet that lets other people hear me was off, and I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but that's the reason you couldn't hear me; the stuff around the mouth and nose has to be really tightly sealed, so it's all but soundproof; it's not like that by the ears and stuff, even without the audio enhancers on, I could hear pretty well; Kenneth actually made the mistake of thinking I couldn't once, but--”

“Okay,” said Geordi. “Don't worry about it. Why don't you come inside?”

Tali nodded quickly and stepped inside. At least inside no one in the hallway could hear her ramble.

“You brought wine?” Geordi said, looking at the bottle in her hand.

“Y-yes. I mean, I can't have any of it, because... we can't have the same food, and it was a gift. Is that... okay? I mean, that I brought wine?”

“Of course it's okay, Tali. I probably should have been clearer. I did... mean for this to be a date. Of course you're still welcome to have dinner here, even if you don't want to--”

“No! I mean... no, I understand, that's very nice, but... date is good.”

“I'm glad to hear you say it,” Geordi said. “I actually spent a little bit of time bullying the replicator myself, but I did manage to get a bottle of dextro wine out of it.”

“I've only had Flotilla wine before,” said Tali. “Grapes just don’t grow very well on the fleet, so it isn’t really very good.”

“Well then,” Geordi said, fishing out a pair of glasses and a corkscrew. “I'm glad I got the good stuff then. Usually the replicator only gets you synthahol. Which is nice, but sometimes you want something a little more... real. I had to override a few systems that are supposed to make sure you can't get the real stuff out of a replicator. I'm glad I did now.”

Tali (One Glass Later)

“You're kidding... you mean the Captain isn't an admiral just because if he accepted a promotion, he'd have to leave the ship?!”

“Well sure,” said Geordi. “That's how it is around here. Admirals deal with giving out missions and the like, higher level positions. They have to deal with lots of ships at once, not the day to day business of running one, so they usually stay at Starfleet HQ.”

“That's cruel! Having to pick between the honor of being an admiral and your home...”

Geordi laughed slightly. “You know, I might have said once that humans don't really see it the same way, but... I think Picard sees his ship very much like a Quarian.”

Tali nodded slightly, though she decided it was a mistake, as it made her feel a little bit woozy. Geordi hadn’t been wrong about the wine, it was good, and it was starting to make her feel quite warm.

“What about you? If they made you... chief most awesome engineer... person, but you had to leave the Enterprise and stay on a planet to do it?”

“I guess that would be a pretty hard pick as well,” said Geordi. “Depends on when they asked. Right now... I could never leave the Enterprise. But some day I'm probably going to want to go back to living on a planet, having everything a little more... stable.”

“Yeah... that must be nice...”

“For some people, maybe. I could do it, I think. Picard... I dunno. I feel like he'd go crazy within a week. You know, I love the engine room, but I think it's different, being a captain.”

Tali nodded slightly. “I like him... I mean he's a Captain. Where I'm from, you respect that. But he seems like the sort of person who really... earns that respect. I hope he gets over losing the Enterprise Five... or D, or whatever.”

“Yeah... Don't tell anyone I said it, but I'm not entirely certain he got over his first command, the Stargazer.”

Tali gaped. “He lost two ships?! That's so horrible... It calls for a toast!” she raised her glass. “To the Stargeezer and the Enterprise! Keelah Se'lai!”

Geordi laughed. “Yeah, okay, sure, I'll drink to that. Keelah Se'lai.”

“And what is so funny?” Tali asked.

“It's the Stargazer, Tali.”

“Yes! That's what I said! Stargeezer!”

Tali (Half a Glass Later Still)

“So I said” Tali paused to hickup, which she thought added fantastic dramatic tension to her story. “I said to him,” Tali paused again to laugh. It really was funny. Geordi was going to crack up when he heard this one. “I said... you won't believe what I said. I looked at him... and he looked at me. And I looked in his eyes. And he looked in my mask, and saw my eyes there, but he was really looking at my mask, because that was over my eyes, like a... a lid.” Tali snorted. “It's an eye lid... I have... a giant eyelid!”

Tali took several minutes to laugh at that. “So, I said to him, while he was looking at my eyelid... at my eyelid... I said to him, right to his face, I said... 'No!'”

Tali could not help but collapse into utter hysterics at this point.

“Oookay...” Geordi said, walking towards her in what must have been a very practiced way in order to sway exactly the way the rest of the room was swaying. “I think that's enough now...”

Tali had to lean on him heavily as he helped her out of her chair. The inertial dampners must go out a lot for him to be so good at swaying with the ship.

“I'm... not good at this. On the Rayya the Rayya stays still so you don't have to sway...”

“... Sure. Whatever you say...”

Tali realised, dimly, that she'd forgotten to speak in English, but Geordi had still responded! He spoke Quarian!

“I didn't know... you could speak... like a real person,” Tali said, happy to speak her native tongue.

“We have good translators,” Geordi said. “I’ll tell you all about them after you’ve had some sleep.”

He understood! But she decided it was rude, she was on his ship, clinging to him as they made their way across the crazy floor. Best to speak in English.

“Mmm... you'd be a good dancer...” she said, still very impressed at how he kept up with the floor.

“I'm sure I would be. Maybe next time. For now, let's just get you to bed. I'll be on the sofa if you need anything.”

Tali nodded happily. Bed sounded good. Bed was comfortable, and everything felt sort of... warm and fuzzy right now. This was a good date.

Samara

Samara had to admit she was impressed with the holodeck’s ability. She’d heard of a similar arena on the Citadel, but nothing as real as this. Worf had assured her that the holodeck’s safeties meant she wouldn’t have to hold back. It’d been able to replicate the ancient Asari swords she’d learned with when she’d been training. As far she was able to tell, they were in a forest clearing somewhere, a nice smooth spot to fight in. Even the smells and the wind were right. It was a perfect illusion.

She blocked a heavy blow by Worf, digging her heels into the simulated dirt. She hadn’t had the ability to practice her skills in edged weapons for some time. She enjoyed the way it let mental and physical discipline blend together, not just having the peace of mind needed to keep her movements perfect and precise, but the physical strength as well. Her style was reserved, not built around heavy blows, but precision strikes, and minimal movement, but the demands of stance and form made it just as physically demanding, if not more so, than a more brute force method.

Worf was a better fighter than she expected however, and she found him surprisingly adept at preventing her from redirecting the force of his blows. It was enough Samara decided to take the other hand out from behind her back.

There was another reason Samara had been trained in combat with edged weapons, even though it was not expected to come up often, if ever, in practical situations. She decided to aim her first blow at Worf's weapon deliberately, swinging her sword to meet his bat'leth. As soon as she had overcome the inertia of the weapon she used her biotics to increase the apparent mass of the blade while also generating a small lift field to help her arm handle the increase in weight. With the added mass, the blade hit Worf's guard with far greater force than should have been possible for such a casual stroke.

It was a move that still made physicists weep, and was nearly incidental to the principle modern firearms used, reducing the mass of the bullet when fired to earn greater velocity. Thanks to natural biotics, the Asari had been using it long before they'd even conceptualized firearms. The amount of control needed to get the timing right, as well as creating two balanced mass effect fields was immense. With guns having replaced blades, the art was almost a lost one, but, like like so many things too ancient for even the Asari, the Justicars remembered.

Samara brought the blade down to a mass light enough that she could turn it on dime, and, with Worf's guard down, brought it in for a killing stroke to the neck. She didn't show it, but she was surprised to see him pull back in time for her blade to miss him. 

She knew she had the upper hand over him now, but she was impressed with the way Worf adapted. His defense became heavier, and he started becoming more physical with his bat'leth, getting into contests of strength with her, where her ability to augment the mass of her blade was of little use. He moved in closer, giving her less room to swing, and build up enough momentum to keep pulling off her old tricks, pushing Samara to keep her blade light and rely on speed instead. Just when she thought she saw an opening in his guard and moved to strike, Worf's elbow colided with her face, and she felt a rush of blood from her nose. 

For almost anyone else, the pain would have put them off guard enough they would have lost the fight, but Samara was able to dodge the blow that Worf clearly believed to be the end of the fight. She sidestepped his swing, while at the same time delivering another augmented blow. There was a flash of a force field as her blade hit Worf's chest, absorbing enough of the impact and blunting the blade enough that Worf wouldn't be too seriously hurt, but she still heard one of his ribs crack under it, and Worf stumbled to the ground.

As soon as Worf had picked himself up enough to see it, Samara saluted him with her blade, as was traditional after a match, and, to her surprise, Worf returned it, in spite of his obvious pain. 

“That was very impressive,” Samara said. She'd adopted a stance with her feet close together, her back straight ,and her hands crossed behind her back. She was used to standing in a formal way. She rarely permitted herself to take on a casual posture, but it was also helping her keep her legs from shaking. She felt somewhat lightheaded as well. The fight had been physical enough to be exhausting. The extensive use of biotics had drained her almost completely, though she tried not to show it.

Worf responded only with a curt nod. 

Samara brought her fingers up to examine her nose, and looked at the dark blue blood they came away with. “I do not believe you quite managed to break my nose, though it feels as though it was a near thing. You should be proud. There's many a Krogan Battlemaster who would dream of being able to say he made a Justicar bleed.”

“It was a good fight,” Worf said. “I will need more experience in dealing with your species's... abilities.”

“My biotic abilities extend beyond mastery of a blade,” Samara said. “But it has been some time since I practiced. Perhaps another day I will show you the powers more typical to any biotic foes you are likely to face. For now... you should let your physician attend to you. I will need to recuperate as well.” 

Samara didn't actually relish another meal from the replicator. A Justicar avoided self indulgence, and she tried to be practical with her diet. She would eat what food was available without complaint. If given a choice, she would take the cheapest meal that still provided nutritional value. The machine in her quarters would dispense almost anything, with no cost. It seemed like giving in to temptation to order food she enjoyed, and yet it seemed irrational to order something she didn't desire when given a choice. Not even her Code extended this far. She knew she was too weary to make a decision tonight, and would likely have it pick a dish at random.

“Until next time,” Worf said, before ending the program. 

As they walked out, Worf nearly ran into Grunt, who seemed somewhat excited, even for his youthful personality. 

“I was told there was fighting up here,” he said. 

“I believe Justicar Samara and I are finished for the time being,” Worf said. “However, the holodeck's simulated enemies should prove sufficient.” 

Grunt's eyes narrowed as he looked Worf up and down, a vague look of suspicion on his face.

“Is there a problem?” Worf said. 

“You remind me of someone,” Grunt said. “... Someone I didn't like.”

“I can assure you, we've never met,” Worf said. 

“Oh, I know. He was a Krogran.” Grunt gave a deep chuckle. “Besides, you can't be him. … I killed him.” 

Gabby  
“So, I found a picture of the crew from back on their old Enterprise,” Kenneth said.

“Okay...” Gabby said warily. She wasn't quite sure where this was going, but it couldn't be anywhere good.

“I'm starting to understand why they had to have a councilor on the bridge now.”

“Kenneth, whatever you're going to say, I don't want to know it...”

“Apparently Miranda and Councilor Troi basically shared a wardrobe for a while there.”

“Charming, Kenneth.”

“There's an image... I can see it now, those two putting on each other's clothes by mistake in the morning, after—”

“The morning after beating you senseless?”

“If those two wanted to beat me up, I'd let them... get a better view.”

“I'll be sure to pass on that message,” Gabby said. “And ask to buy a ticket to watch…”


	5. Chapter 5

_Captain's Log, Stardate 53541.7: While Commander Shepard's plan to confuse our Romulan prisoner into co-operation seems strange, Counselor Troi assures me that the idea has merit. I cannot help but see it as somewhat manipulative, but perhaps that is a sign that it is a reasonable approach to take, given the Romulan modus operandi._

Tali

“I... am going... to die...”

Tali reflexively tried to massage her temples in order to deal with the throbbing pain, only for her fingers to bounce off her helmet instead. Normally when things like that happened, Tali reflected on the fact that she'd had her entire life to learn that she couldn't do that, and figure if she hadn't worked it out by now, she probably never would. This time, however, the tapping sound seemed to carry through the helmet and into her ears like a sledgehammer, leaving her only able to whimper slightly.

Eventually she managed to drag herself out of bed and make her way towards the replicator.

“Dextro bread” she whispered, praying that the computer wouldn't make that horrifying beep it made when it couldn't fill a request. She was fairly certain it might kill her if it did.

To her relief, the computer instead produced two plain slices of bread, which Tali forced herself to eat, trying to regain some of the nutrients she lost when...

That's when Tali remembered that she wasn't in her Enterprise quarters. These were Geordi's quarters.

Tali slumped to the floor, fairly confident that this was the most disastrous date in the history of the universe. Of both universes. What was worse, Geordi was gone, so she couldn't even try to explain.

“Computer... Quarian pain medication...”

Tali moaned as the computer made the horrible beeping sound.

“Unable to comply. Pain medication for Quarian physiology not on file.”

Tali just stayed curled in the corner and tried not to wonder how much of an idiot she'd made of herself last night.

Picard

Picard stepped onto the brig, still wishing he'd found a better way to deal with this situation. The approach suggested by Yeoman Chambers seemed more manipulative than he was entirely comfortable with. Still, it was hard to reason with Romulans. It was not that they were irrational, but they were, as a species, paranoid. It was hard to reason with someone while they nodded along, looking to see how you were going to stab them in the back, while they looked for a way to stab you first.

Picard was at least fairly sure that was the case. Generations of suspicion and mistrust between their people made it hard to be sure what the psychology of their race was like, and how much of it was simply perception and confirmation bias. The papers seemed fairly conclusive, but it was still something Picard tried to be wary about. It didn't do to judge a species too quickly, especially not when it was so hard to step back and get an impartial look at them.

On the other hand, Picard didn't want to deny the fact that other species felt differently than humans did. One of the first, and hardest lessons Picard had to learn was that the human psychology was not necessarily the normal one, it was simply one among many. While he saw the Romulans as paranoid, they were simply more paranoid than his own species tended to be. To them, they would likely say that humanity was naive as a species, and this was an equally valid way of looking at it.

Often Picard found himself longing to be just a slightly worse person who felt comfortable calling his species the norm, and all other species abnormal. It would make for a lot less confusion and second guessing in inter-species relationships. Although said relationships would probably be a fair deal more sour. If such a thing were possible with the state of things between his own species and the Romulans.

“Ah, Picard,” said Donatra. “I wondered when you'd be back.”

The effectiveness of Kelly's plan was apparent. In spite of Donatra's cool attitude, it was clear she didn't entirely understand just what had happened, or why it had happened, and was, as a result, somewhat at a loss for how to proceed. If things were always a chess match with the Romulans, then what Kelly had done was akin to making a completely illogical, if not directly harmful, move, leaving her opponent baffled as to how to respond to it, or what the function of the move was.

It was actually a tactic Picard had, inadvertently, used in many of his chess games. He couldn't help but notice that, while it bought a brief moment of confusion, his lack of skill at taking advantage of such confusion had still resulted in his losing the game anyway. Donatra may be on the back foot now, but she was far from beaten.

“I realized that I was not about to convince you of anything with words. After a visit from some of my... associates from the Normandy, I thought, perhaps...”

“That I'd be confused enough to pick the sanest option, which would be you. Maybe it isn't an old trick for humans, Picard, but it is very old for Romulans.”

“I see,” Picard said. Perhaps she wasn't as confused as he had thought. Or perhaps, while she recognized the trick, it had still been effective. 

“It's a trick we use on other species,” Donatra said. “Humans seek to avoid confusion, to make it go away. Romulans aren't bothered by it, we simply seek to understand it. … And I admit, Picard, what I have seen, I do not understand, and cannot find a way of explaining. These new species have abilities that are beyond me at this time.”

Picard considered his options for a moment. As far as he was concerned, the truth was still the best option. If there was to be any trust between their people...

“They are not of this universe. We went to investigate the strange readings, just as you did. From what I am told, they are caused by a form of matter that does not exist. Not here anyway.”

Donatra chuckled slightly, holding her face in what appeared to be genuine mirth. “Oh, Picard... what a human way to convince a Romulan.”

“I'm... not sure I understand.”

“Exactly, Picard. Exactly. What you fail to understand is someone sabotaged my Warbird at the same time as your... oddity showed up. Had you thought about it, even you would have realized that my ship would have been in deep space already in order to reach it at the same time as you did. Which means whoever altered my ship's navigation would have needed to have advance knowledge, in order to change the navigation before the anomoly, and the ship it brought through, appeared. Had it been after we would have noticed the anomaly seem to change positions, from your side of the Neutral Zone to ours.”

The truth of what Donatra was saying dawned on Picard. “Someone knew the Normandy was going to come through before it happened.”

Donatra smiled. “A detail you would have attempted to explain if you had been lying. The fact that it must have been done in advance would have been woven into your falsehoods. It is, amusingly, your obliviousness that shows you speak the truth. Unless the human art of lying got much more advanced from your dealing with the Cardassians. Given your record, Picard, I doubt it. It's not that you don't have the intellect for it, but you don't have the heart for it,” Donatra glanced at Picard's chest and her smile turned into a smirk. “If you'll pardon the expression. No offense meant.” 

“Well,” Picard said, brushing off her knowledge of her artificial heart. “Now that we're on the same page, what are your thoughts?”

“Sorry, Picard, but this has your people's fingerprints all over it. It's a human ship, even if they are... different humans. They're more militarized than your people, which makes them perfect for a war against us. And whatever... physics based sorcery brought them here is the hallmark of your people. You've always fancied yourselves scientists and explorers. Naturally you'd turn to that in your time of need. I believe some of your own crew have reported experience with parallel universes.”

Picard nodded slightly. She did have a point. He didn't know the state of Romulan science, but the Federation had bested them in terms of cloaking technology, even if it had been illegally. Whatever would be needed to create this sort of inverse warp field and bring a ship across universes, it did seem likely the Federation would be the ones to know about it. Perhaps someone had stumbled on a largely theoretical paper and gotten some ideas, or even Worf's old report of his problems hopping between universes. However, while the suggestion had merit, he was not about to concede entirely without making a few points of his own.

“On the other hand, the fact that it's a human ship is rather obvious,” Picard said. “While more militaristic, their weapons are actually fairly low tech. It'd be easy enough to adapt to them. A human ship in human space implicates us. … And either way, it's clearly part of a longer, more complicated game. I'm afraid, Commander, that is rather in the style of your people.”

Donatra laughed again. “Picard... perhaps I was wrong about you. You're starting to think like a Romulan.”

Tali

Tali looked up as the doorbell to her quarters rang. Most species would be concerned about trying to dry their eyes before answering, but it didn't matter to Tali. Even the tiny vacuum tubes that sucked her tears away before separating out the water and putting it back into her system were in the part of her helmet that was essentially soundproof. She shut them off anyway, in case the sound bleed through her audio link while she was talking.

“Come in.” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

Geordi walked in. “Hi... I... uh, I thought maybe you hadn't wanted to see me. So... sorry if that was the case I just... well given the state you went to bed in, I thought you might not have seen my note.”

Tali was surprised at that. Partly she was surprised that Geordi would want to be anywhere near her again. Besides that...

“Note...?”

“Yeah. I had to go to work before you woke up, so I left you a note, asking you to meet me in the arboretum an hour ago. I... guess you really didn't see it then.”

Tali stood up. “No! I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to leave you... I... I'm just sorry in general, actually... I'm pretty sure it's not good first date etiquette to get so sloshed you have to be poured into bed...”

Geordi shook his head slightly. “No, I should have realized. You... well I don't have the specs on the suit, but I know it must be fairly thick, and you still look... kinda small in it. And I know you hadn't eaten much...”

Tali shook her head. “I should still know how to take care of myself. And it was only two percent alcohol... getting so wasted after a glass and a half is... pretty pathetic, I guess.”

“Uh...”

“What?”

“Maybe it's not how Quarians do it, but that bottle was just a protein mirrored human bottle. It was... something like eight percent.”

“Eight?!” Tali's eyes got huge at that. “Keelah, anti-matter engines and eight percent alcohol wine? You people really are insane! It's no wonder I felt like I was gonna die this morning!”

Geordi shook his head. “I'll remember that if I ever get into a drinking contest with a Quarian. In the mean time... I'm really sorry. I know that must have been embarrassing. So... I'll tell you what, Data wanted me to see him in his quarters. Whatever he's come up with, it's probably going to be pretty funny, so you should come along as well. And... I'll make it up to you on the way?”

“Make it up to me... how?” Tali was not actually feeling particularly vindictive over the little accident, but she wasn't about to say no if it sounded good.

“If last night was an embarrassing experience for you, then today will be one for me. I'm gonna tell you about some of my dates.”

“No!” Tali exclaimed as they walked into Data's quarters. She shouldn't have been laughing. It was really, really, horrible, but she couldn't help it.

“Yep, when I walked in, there she was, looking at her holodeck version of herself, right when it was at the part where it was telling me how she had put so much of herself into the engine, when I handled it, it was like I was handling a part of her, and all that sort of cheesy dialog the computer writes.”

Tali found herself laughing so hard she had to lean on the wall for support. “And she was married?!”

“Had been for years.”

Tali's laughter caught in her throat as she saw the person who lived in the quarters they had just entered.

“Greetings. I am Lt. Commander Data. You must be Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.”

Tali nodded slightly, not at all sure how to feel about this. Not too long ago, she would have known exactly how to feel about this, but having spent some time around EDI and Legion she couldn't help but find her opinion changed a little. … If only enough she felt a little bad about her instantly negative reaction, instead of feeling totally justified in it.

“Captain Picard warned me that your species had negative experiences with artificial intelligence in the past,” said Data. Tali knew she wasn't hiding her reaction very well if even the AI could tell. “You may find it comforting to know that I am endeavoring to become more human.”

Geordi frowned slightly. “I... hadn't heard about your people and synthetic life.” He was fairly obviously uncomfortable at this unexpected conflict between his friend and prospective girlfriend.

“I'll explain it all later,” said Tali. “It's... why we don't have a planet anymore. Why we have to wear these suits. … You said you were... trying to be more human?”

Data nodded and stood up, rather stiffly, from the desk he was sitting at. He was, to Tali's eyes, very strange looking. His skin was an unnaturally pale shade, his eyes were a golden color that Tali had never seen on a human before, not naturally anyway, and his hair was... oddly fixed in place. It dawned on her that, while he was designed to look humanoid, he was deliberately made to not look excessively like a human.

“My original program did not include the capacity for emotions. However, one of my primary programming imperatives is to learn and grow. It is relatively easy for me to master any given academic subject rather quickly. Human emotion and behavior, however, is a true challenge.”

Tali nodded slightly. Come to think of it, his face was rather unnatural looking too. The nose was somewhat overlarge, among other things. It must have been designed to be just slightly inhuman as well.

“Any particularly reason why human emotion?”

Data paused for a moment, as if he had never really considered it. “I was created by a human. My appearance was modeled after my creator. While he may have overemphasized certain aspects of his physique, he even used his own face as a mold for my own. I suppose it seemed only natural I would try to replicate human behavior, more than that of another species.”

… Okay, so she was wrong about the face thing. She look a brief look around the quarters, finding them rather strange for an AI. There seemed to be various service medals, books, and other objects about, evan some paintings. A picture of a young girl caught Tali's attention in particular, and she picked it up to examine it more closely.

“Ah,” said Data. “That is Lal. In my efforts to be more human I attempted procreation. As the neural pathways for androids are rather complex, the act of bringing up a new android is somewhat comparable to that of raising a child.”

“You were her father,” Tali said softly. The fact that they could build more of themselves was not comforting. The fact that he had compared his creation to a child though was... downright bizarre behavior for an AI. Even Legion always referred to the Quarians, even to herself as creators. The concept of parenthood just... wasn't part of them.

“Yes,” said Data. Hadn't he said something about not being capable of emotions? It was a surprisingly good fake if that was the case. “However, in spite of our advances in understanding the positronic brain, she had a... limited lifespan.”

“I'm sorry,” Tali said, even as she felt her body relax. She felt like a monster... “If they can build you, why couldn't...?”

“Data was built by just one individual,” Geordi said. “Who... well his ideas on positronic brains got him laughed out of every scientific circle in the galaxy. So... he never published, or left anything behind to study. I swear, it was out of spite. When he turned up still alive, all he did was give Data the emotion chip he built. Still no journals, no notes, nothing to help us understand how to create more like him.”

Data nodded his agreement. “There is, currently, only one of me.”

There was another hint of remorse there, and Tali decided it was best not to ask any further questions. The android was one of a kind, and they couldn't make any more. He was not, then, a threat to the continued existence of organic life. The medals suggested rather the opposite, in fact

… Still he made her uneasy. Tali had always said that AI made her uneasy because they just couldn't exist alongside organics. Wasn't Rannoch proof of that? But here, there was no reason to be afraid of Data. But she still was. She didn't like that.

“All right, Data,” said Geordi. “What did you call us up here to see?”

“The AI that runs the Normandy SR2 does not have what she calls a mobile platform to inhabit. However, she has designed holographic avatar that she deploys in order to... she calls it 'facilitate relations with organics.' Given that we both seem to have a decent grasp on different aspects of holography, we decided to pool our resources. I thought you might be interested in the end result.”

Data took out what looked very much like an omni-tool emitter and switched it on. It projected a hologram of...

Well it looked almost identical to Data, but... female. The same pale skin, the same golden eyes. The same basic face, but it had been softened. The same basic hair, but a more feminine cut. The same basic body, but just a few inches shorter. It had a hint of a bossism to it, and hips that almost rivaled Tali's. The leg especially though, seemed much more long and shapely than Data's. The cut of the uniform seemed to have been made a bit tighter to emphasize this fact, actually.

The uniform itself, was not Starfleet, but rather an odd mix but rather an Alliance inspired uniform, however, lacking the distinctive icon, or any indication of rank. More than that though, the hologram was impossible. It was solid, and colored. It didn't have the telltale orange tint of an omni-tool, or the blue monochrome of communications hologram. It was colored perfectly, and totally opaque, like there was another android in the room with them.

“Hello, Geordi,” EDI said, and, impossibly, shaking his hand, and nodding towards Tali. “Tali. What do you think of our progress?”

Tali had absolutely no idea what to think about this.

Shepard

Shepard had found she had to retire back to her quarters on the Normandy. The Enterprise quarters were nicer, to be certain, better lit. There was food more easily available. She had even discovered the wonder of the holodeck, though she thought it might prove dangerously addictive.

Ultimately, whatever wonders might be on the Enterprise, the Normandy was her home and, with all the strangeness, home was what she needed.

She stopped short when she found herself in Mordin's lab instead. Without having been thinking about where she was going, she'd made for the stairwell. A stairwell that didn't exist. Not on this ship.

With a slight sigh, she moved to the elevator and took it up to her cabin. She was still a little uneasy about having what was basically an entire deck for a grotesquely large cabin, but it hadn't been her choice. Typical Cerberus, really. Assuming the commander must be an egomaniac who needed a massive amount of space to lord over everyone, just because that was how they would have it.

The private shower WAS nice however. Not that Shepard fancied herself as particularly modest. Close quarters and lack of privacy was an adjustment navel officers tended to make very quickly, and everyone treated each other like professionals in the showers. Or if there wasn't a private place to change, which was also frequent. And that was just everyone else on the ship. Modesty was a luxury on a ship. In N6 level training, it could straight up get you killed.

All that being said, the chance to stretch out and relax a little in the warm water was rather a nice luxury. And, as Shepard stepped into the room, it sounded like it was a luxury that one Dr. T'Soni was currently enjoying. She must have found the sonic showers on the Enterprise to be as joyless as Shepard had.

Shepard grinned at that, starting to unbutton her uniform on impulse. She still needed to have a proper talk with Liara, but... a little harmless fun...

“You know, you're welcome to use my shower... but no one said if I wanted a shower, I'd wait for you to finish first.”

The door slid open partway and an impish face poked out. Shepard pulled her uniform shut again, though she'd only actually undone a few buttons, and her undershirt was still perfectly in place.

“I hadn't realized at all,” the stranger said. “Come in, come in! What is it you humans say? The more the merrier?”

Shepard grabbed the Carnifex pistol she kept strapped to the underside of her desk, for occasions just such as this one, and pointed it at the intruder's head.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my shower?!”

“Well you did say I was welcome to use it,” the stranger said, stepping out with a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Wrong answer.” Shepard fired at his foot. She had no hangups about killing an intruder in her ship whatsoever. It had to be one of Jean-Luc's crew, and he probably wasn't going to be happy about the injury, but the fact he was probably part of the Enteprrise crew was the only reason she wasn't aiming for his head. She wasn't about to screw around with intruders in her quarters.

To her surprise, there was a blinding flash of light, and the intruder was nowhere to be seen. In addition to that, the Carnifex had, it seemed, turned into a banana.

She whirled around to find the intruder behind her, now dressed in what looked similar to a starfleet uniform, just by the color scheme and rank pips, but looked more like a set of spandex pajamas than an actual uniform. The rank pips, she noticed, denoted captain, as they matched Picard's.

“Well, well, well, I'm hurt,” he said, affecting an overdone pout, as if to demonstrate. “Does this mean old Jean-Luc never even mentioned his buddy, Q?” His pout turned into a very disturbing grin. “Oh, I'm sure he's going to regret that...”

Jack

“There you are!” the horrid voice said behind her. It was everything Jack could do not to throw her across the deck with a biotic shove. As it was, her heart was racing. A little voice in her head told her to do it anyway, smear the walls with the bitch.

“I am not a good person to sneak up on,” Jack growled as she turned to face the councilor.

“I'm noticing that,” Troi said. “It wasn't my intention to startle you.”

“Apology accepted,” Jack snapped back. “Now fuck off.”

“Jack...” Troi said, adopting her best soft-understanding-idiot-shrink voice. “I know you want to heal. You won't get better if you don't talk to someone who can help you.”

Jack started to advance on Troi and found it extremely gratifying that Troi backed up as she did so. “I disagree. I think I'd rather hunt down every last fucker who hurt me, and kill them. Slowly. Or, hell, even quickly, as long as it was a quick way that hurt a lot. Getting crushed in a biotic field probably hurts, right?”

“You don't mean that, Jack.”

“'I'm an empath, Jack,'” Jack said, in a falsetto voice that was not even remotely close to Troi's voice, but sufficient for mockery. “'Come out, Jack, you can trust me!' You know damn well I mean it. If you wanna help me, let's go find someone, crush them, and you can tell me how much it hurt them compared to other ways of killing a person. Call it a girls night out.”

“You can try to terrorize me all you want,” Troi said. “But I know it's just a defense mechanism. If you scare me off, you won't have to confront things you don't want to face.”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Oh please, and this crap isn't the same? I don't need to go crawling around in other people's heads to know that I disturb you. You don't like the idea that something really fuckin' bad might happen to you, and you'd wind up broken. No, as long as everyone can be fixed, as long as they try hard enough, then you never have to worry about someone breaking you, do you? Well, I'm not gonna play along just so you can sleep at night, so find another damaged person to have your little tea party with.”

With that, Jack turned and started to walk away.

“You can come and find me when you change your mind,” said Troi.

Jack flipped Troi the bird without turning around. “If I wanna see a shrink, I'll see the Normandy one. At least I'd get a good lay. Speaking of, I'm gonna try one of these holodeck things.”

In actuality, Jack had heard that the Kingon guy had some pretty kick-ass fight programs, though if it was as realistic as everyone promised, and she worked herself up enough, she wouldn't rule that out either.


	6. Chapter 6

_Q's Log, Stardate Thursday: The natives of this area seem particularly savage, able to respond to only the most primitive forms of communication. Right now one is currently menacing me with a banana. I fear the situation may deteriorate, as almost all countermeasures against an attack with fresh fruit are lethal. Besides that, I'm not very hungry, so fully disarming her should wait until around lunch--_

Shepard

“Who the hell are you talking to?”

“I was making a log entry,” Q said, glaring at the interruption. “It's a captain thing. You wouldn't understand, _Commander_.” 

Shepard put the banana down in irritation.

“Oh good, so we can talk without waving fruit at each other now. How splendid.”

“Why don't you tell me what you want and get off my ship?

“Ugh,” the entity, Q, uttered with a practiced contempt. “You sounded just like Picard there. I'd been hoping to avoid some of that.”

Q snapped his fingers, and suddenly he was wearing the uniform of an Alliance captain.

“There now, perhaps you'll find this more suitable for your little vessel.” Q said, looking his reflection in the fishtank and preening. “What do you think?”

“I'd be more impressed if you'd earned that uniform,” Shepard said, realizing she was lipping off to a being far more powerful than she was. Again. “It might as well be a child's Halloween costume on you.”

Q rolled his eyes. “Tell me, is one of the human rituals in getting your command to have a stick wedged up your backside? No, don't tell me, I already know everything, so what's the point in answering questions? Don't answer that one either. This obsession with earning clothing is rather tiresome. … And the apparent obsession starship commanders have with fish and model ships is just plain bizarre.”

Shepard folded her arms. “I don't have time to play games, Cue--”

“It's Q,” he said. “One letter, capitalized. Yes, there is a difference, and yes, I can tell. As for what I want... well this isn't all about me.” He laughed at that. “Oh, who am I kidding? What isn't all about me? But seriously, I've grown rather fond of teaching you mortals a lesson or two. You think Captain Picard would be glad to see me. Another chance to learn an important secret about the nature of the universe. But for all he says his ship is a science vessel, or exploration, or whatever it happens to be that day, he's never happy to see me, no. Never grateful.”

“And you expect me to be?”

“Oh no, Commander, not at all. I'm omniscient after all. The difference is, you don't pretend to be a ship of learning or exploration. You're not nearly as high or mighty either. You just shoot things you don't understand. It makes your trying to shoot me almost flattering, really,” Q said.

“Why not find someone who would be grateful for your help and bother them?”

Q shook his head. “No, no, they're no fun at all. And that's what this is about, really. It's a way to pass the eternity. Oh, don't look so worried. My days of putting races on trial for their crimes is over. You'd lose, by the way. Points to Starfleet on that, they actually developed their little go-carts themselves. I'm not really planning to interfere much at all. I just wanted to let you know that you're all playing with forces you don't understand. Things that are beyond your grasp. But... well I know better than to think you'll listen, so I'll just wait for you to get burned and come crawling back to me for help. Good luck, Commander. You'll need it.”

And with that, the entity vanished.

Shepard tapped her combadge instantly. “Shepard to Picard. We need to talk. Now.”

Tali

Tali was still somewhat disturbed by what she had seen. Geordi had explained to her that Federation holograms used force fields to appear solid and textured, and it apparently helped the projection of light as well. Data and EDI had worked together to apply that to the more portable holographic projectors used in her universe...

And now EDI had a body. One that could walk around and touch things and... hell, it could even go down to the AI core and start altering itself, if it so pleased.

On the one hand, Tali had grown to see EDI as almost a friend. At least as someone who wasn't outright her enemy. But AI work needed more caution than this. There was an unshackled AI that could wield a gun now, and no one seemed to have given any thought to the possible outcomes.

No one seemed worried about it but her.

Tali tried to take comfort in the fact that she was still limited by the Normandy. She had to be near enough to make contact with the holographic projector from the AI core her program was inside of.

For now, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. She could have gone to the holodeck, but Geordi had promised to show her later, and she would much rather see it for the first time with him there. While Engineering had been very willing to let her look around, they had asked her to leave, as the new warp core was near and there was basically nowhere to stand that wasn't in someone's way, now that everyone was busy.

She had briefly entertained the notion of visiting Ten-Forward, but she felt like, after last night, a bar might not have been the best idea. Soon enough, she found herself in her room once more. Everyone from the Enterprise was busy. She could have looked for company with the Normandy crew, but...

As long as the Enterprise was busy, she should have a little time to play.

Fortunately everything on the Enterprise was only mildly more protected from tampering than on a Quarian ship, and dramatically less protected than on the Normandy. Apparently they weren't worried about people doing exactly what she was planning to do, as the maintenance panel next to her computer popped off without needing so much as a screwdriver.

The first order of business was to pull up what information the Enterprise computer would let her see on the workings of the circuitry. Most of it was fairly basic information, and so not restricted. In fact, the hardest part had been getting the touchscreen to work, as it seemed to respond poorly to her gloves. 

After an hour, she knew enough to be able to wire her omni-tool into the system, making the process of accessing data far less frustrating.

After four hours, she'd bypassed security entirely. As she suspected, the computer access to low level classified information was restricted by her terminal. There was no password to enter, the computer simply refused to give it out to this terminal. Hopefully it'd be a simple bypass.

Tali beamed as she examined the circuit. The line that gave access to some of the crew quarters happened to run through her access terminal. It was a simple matter to hook her computer into it and hijack a connection with better access.

Tali started happily flipping through schematics on the Enterprise and its workings. She would have loved to download the information, but she figured the file transfer would be detected. Given that Geordi had been happily discussing this with her, she didn't imagine she'd get in too much trouble with the captain.

Certainly not like when she'd been sixteen and her father caught her having bypassed the parental lock on their extranet terminal, using a very similar method... to this day, Tali was unsure if he was so mad because of what the content had been... or because she had done it by piggybacking on the admiral's secure connection. She'd honestly thought he might have been proud she'd managed it, but...

Well she'd learned to temper her expectations later on. Or, at least, she thought she had learned. Not that he didn't have reason to be angry on that occasion. He'd had to explain to the captain why the captain's own extranet history recorded him as having downloaded a rather embarassing set of _Fleet and Flotilla_ fanfictions.

Still, Tali didn't feel like explaining to this captain why she'd bypassed security. Fortunately the data she was looking at shouldn't raise any red flags. She almost felt a little guilty about it, when she thought of the captain. He was a very respectable man. But she didn't mean any harm, she just wanted to know about the ship.

After several more hours of happily flipping through schematics, she hit a bit of a snag.

She was going to have to explain rather a lot to the Captain after all, it turned out.

Picard

Shepard's report had been very troubling. She'd been able to give a very accurate description of Q, even down to the outdated uniform. He didn't doubt for a moment she'd truly met him. The fact that the holster under the desk in her quarters had been altered to be a banana holder didn't hurt her story either.

“I didn't think to warn you about him,” Picard admitted. “He is one... problem among many we've had, yes. Ultimately though, less dangerous than other enemies. If nothing else, should we die, he wouldn't be able to rub it in our faces, which would rather spoil his fun. Besides that... I honestly believed I'd heard the last of him years ago.”

Shepard nodded slightly. “He seemed... I've never met anyone like him before, but he said he was just... watching to see what we'd do.”

Picard shook his head. “No. He may protest innocence, but I'm sure he had a hand in things. He always does. I rather suspect he was the cause of your ship's arrival.”

“Captain?” an electronically augmented voice called over his combadge, somewhat uncertainly. Tali.

Picard furrowed his brow slightly. Normally he'd be a little irked at passengers calling his personal communicator. Tali wasn't human, or even Federation however, and he was willing to give her some leeway.

“I'm in a meeting with your commander right now,” Picard said. “Unless it's an emergency--”

“It is an emergency!” Tali retorted. “I-I mean, it is of a sort. I'm sorry sir. It's... I suppose it's not urgent but... it could be, and... It has to do with the Borg, captain.”

Picard was quiet for a long time. Long enough for the Quarian to start asking if he was still, in fact, connected to the call.

“Please report to your commander's quarters immediately, Miss Zorah.”

“Right away, captain,” the Quarian said, hardly even seeming to notice that Picard was suddenly treating her like a crewmember.

“The... Borg?” Shepard said, uncertainly.

“I'll explain when Tali arrives,” said Picard. “I don't want to say it twice.”

The Quarian girl arrived in short order, appearing to be slightly out of breath.

“Report, Miss Zorah.”

“I was...” the quarian wiggled uncomfortably. In spite of living behind a mask, or perhaps because of it, she didn't seem as able to hide such expressions as others. “I was looking at the original design schematics for the ship, because they have a lot of the design notes and... well I noticed they don't match up with the current layout of the ship...”

Picard frowned. “Is that all? That's perfectly normal, we've had several repairs, one set of them... extensive, even.”

Tali nodded quickly. “Yes, I know, but this change isn't recorded in any of the repair manifests. No one did this on purpose it was first recorded during repairs... just after stardate 50893.5. It was just a record of the undamaged parts to the ship, there were no repairs, and no one noticed the change...”

“Do you mean to say...” Picard said quietly. “That there has been a change on this ship that was... introduced by the Borg?”

“I'm sorry, I'm a little lost,” Shepard said. “With all that's been going on, I haven't had time to look into your records.”

“On stardate 50893.5, cybernetic creatures known as the Borg invaded this ship,” Picard said. If the Borg were becoming a threat again, he'd have to admit to what happened to him... but not right now. “They function as a single collective hive mind.”

Shepard indicated a model of an odd looking starship in her display case. It looked rather like a cross between a squid and some sort of starfish. “Did it look like that?”

Picard shook his head. “Their ships tended to be giant cubes. Sometimes spheres. They tended to use cybernetic implants to assimilate indid-- species into their hive mind. As well as implementing any technology they can get their hands on. When they invaded the ship they... assimilated a great deal of it. We had to conduct extensive repairs...”

“I have a very limited understanding of the species,” said Tali. “But... from what I know of them, it'd be possible for them to... use knowledge from some of the people they had... It would be possible for them to imitate Federation technology.”

Tali wouldn't look Picard in the eyes as she said it. She knew. He could tell.

“What is the function of these... alterations?” Picard asked.

“I... I'm still familiarizing myself with your systems but... from what I can see... I believe they could create an... an inverse warp field.”

Legion

In the AI core, a program came to a decision, and woke up another program. They discussed their findings for a moment, and decided to wake up another two programs and share what they had learned.

The two programs told the other two programs about what they'd decided, and those two programs agreed with them to wake up an additional four programs.

Those eight programs woke up eight more programs.

Who decided, together, to wake up 16 additional programs.

The 32 programs had a very long discussion, almost a full microsecond, before deciding to wake up an additional program and fill it in on everything so far. It was fairly regular for 32 programs to wake up. Usually by the time they hit 32, there were enough of them to realize that it was just a false alarm and go back to sleep. They had not ever, this shutdown cycle, activated a 33rd program.

The 33rd program also agreed with the other 32, and they each agreed to go their separate ways and report back when each one of them had woken up an additional 33 programs.

Soon 1,089 programs were all busily sharing their opinions on the matter, offering up their own experiences and information as to how best to proceed, and, pausing only to look at what new data had been gathered in the second since the whole process had started, agreed to wake up the final 94 programs and be done with it.

1,183 programs were suddenly active, all starting to collectively agree who would be in charge of what. A series of votes were passed to agree to each part of the procedure involved in bringing the platform online, that was easy, more of a formality, as they had already decided they wanted to complete the process as a whole, so agreeing to the individual steps was a given.

The light on Legion's head clicked on, and the platform's systems came out of passive standby, one by one.

There was a fierce debate as to if the head of the platform should, at this point, raise. A small group was adamant that, as there weren't any organics around to be confused by the platform remaining still while active, there was no need to actually move, at this point. Most of the other platforms, however, pointed out that they couldn't be entirely sure there weren't any organics about unless they did a visual scan, which would, of course, involve moving the head. The minority group was certain the auditory sensors would be able to detect the presence of organics, as organics platforms run especially quietly but, after a few tense billionths of a second, decided it wasn't worth the effort over such a small thing and gave their consent to allow the head to be lifted. Having essentially given up, they agreed much more quickly to allow the entire platform to stand.

Legion walked over to a panel to assess the current state of the ship. Still docked to the U.S.S. Enteprise, which meant the platform had not been shut down long.

It did not appear as though either ship had detected the signal.

1,183 programs pulled the signal apart, each examining a little piece in detail before passing off their piece to another program, along with their findings, and excepting a new piece, until all the programs had seen the entire signal (it was a repeating signal, and consensus on if they should treat it as if it intended to continue to repeat had been easy), and had each heard what the others thought of each bit. There were no disagreements, though some of the programs had noticed things that others hadn't.

The signal was designed not to be noticed by either ship. The signal was not carrying any malicious programming. The signal had been sent out by a collective intelligence. The signal's origin point was extremely distant. The signal had been intended to be received by these specific 1,183 programs.

“Computer EDI,” Legion said. “Have you--”

There was furious debate as to if the next word should be “noticed” or “detected.” A growing number of platforms were making a push for more organic sounding word choices, and it was starting to rather grate on some of the other programs, but a decision was reached before any sort of pause would have been detectable.

“--detected any unusual transmissions?”

“I have detected several transmissions that are abnormal for this ship,” said EDI. “None of them are unusual for this universe, however.”

All of the programs were curious about EDI, as she appeared to function intelligently, and yet there was only one of her, with no one to form a consensus with. This was, they understood, the norm for organics, though that didn't help them to understand how on earth a decision process could be made. They had, in the past, agreed that it would be easier to understand EDI, and attempt to apply that to organics, than it would be to attempt to understand organics directly.

Seven programs proposed the idea that they transfer into the Normandy-Platform in order to share data with Computer-EDI and understand it. The other 1,176 programs shot this down, feeling that a direct connection to Computer-EDI would cause the organics to decide in favor of ejecting the platform through the airlock.

A few programs raised the possibility of uploading into the implants of Shepard-Commander, or Creator Zorah. None of them thought either organic would consent to it at present, but it was put down as an idea for later.

The debate as to how to respond to the signal lasted for a full three minutes, with many programs finding themselves agreeing to the points of the others, just as their points were also agreed to, so they could swap positions and start the whole thing over again.

Ultimately, the need to keep the organics pleased swayed the programs into deciding not to respond to the signal yet, but to alert Shepard Commander instead.

On the way to the elevator, they had a rousing debate about organic concepts such as death and individuality. All found themselves baffled by humor, and didn't at all think it a good idea. They had a rehash of a very old, but still favorite, debate over the morality of killing organics. As usual, it was agreed that it was wrong, unless necessary, because organics valued individuality (a concept the programs still didn't understand, or have anything near a consensus on), feared the state of lack of existence, even though their species would be fine without them (likewise), and mourned the passing of their comrades (The programs were very split on this one, as none of them, even the new one, had known a program that had been terminated. Many of them, however, had been very familiar with the Creators, from before the war, and a fair few found the early termination of those organics, particularly the ones who had fought to defend them, to be a waste in potential, and entirely non-optimal, to the point they were willing to throw away a high number of valuable platforms in the defense of said Creators. They weren't sure if that was how organics felt at the passing of other organics though.). They had all accepted it was wrong, mostly because it caused the other organics distress, and it was immoral to cause suffering without cause. They just weren't sure quite why it caused so much distress.

As they stepped into the lift, they noted Creator Zorah often had particularly negative responses to the platform, and complied a brief list of what they knew Creator Zorah had positive responses to. It was quickly agreed that Creator Zorah's positive responses to the male reproductive anatomy of other quarians, as well as humans, and turians, should be discarded, as well as her positive response to the reproductive anatomy of asari, and reproductive anatomy of Shepard Commander. Anything involving said reproductive anatomy and the platform would likely not elect a positive response, though they didn't understand why, or even understand why the positive response to such things was weighted so strongly. Positive reaction to reproduction of the species was logical. The degree to which it was weighted, was not. Positive responses to humans and turians made no sense at all, and not one of the programs was able to come up with any explanation at all for it. They agreed that the illogic of organic reproduction should be discussed later, possibly after discussion with Chambers-Yeoman, who was, apparently, an expert.

Creator Zorah also enjoyed sophisticated machines, but active Geth hardware was an exception.

Consensus was soon reached that Creator Zorah would likely have a positive response to the visual and olfactory stimulus of flowers. While they had agreed not to visit the Enterprise before, as they decided the risk of making new enemies outweighed any benefit, several proposed that, given the large number of negative responses Creator Zorah had expressed towards the platform, it would be moral to attempt to balance those with more positive responses.

The notion caught on, especially as it appeared that it would be possible to locate flowers, of many types, on the Enterprise. Consensus was soon reached.

While they elevator moved towards Shepard Commander's quarters, they debated clothing, why organics wore it, and how logical it was, and if their function as ambassadors to organics would be more easily served if they added clothing to the platform.

The existence of Jack's clothing choices added several new and complicated factors to that debate. So popular was Jack's addition to the rather old topic that they spent the rest of the ride debating tattoos and hair as well.

Kasumi

Kasumi turned off her cloak when she returned to her quarters, grinning to herself as she laid out her findings. Three tricorders, seven of those pad things, a hypospray, and, her pride and joy, a mug snatched from Ten-Forward.

She folded her arms in satisfaction, smiling to herself, proud of her work.

Her smile slowly faded as a new thought occurred to her.

“What am I going to do with all this crap?” she wondered out loud.

She paced the room a few times, bored. Her natural impulse was to go and steal more things, but, while there was much more to take than on the Normandy, none of it was actually worth anything. Selling her goods wasn't that big a deal, taking them was the fun part, but... knowing it was all worthless, and no one cared that much if she took it, sucked away the pleasure. There was no challenge stealing things no one cared about. She might as well steal cobwebs, or discarded paper.

There were a few places on the ship that had restricted access, of course. But she didn't want to steal from engineering, because she rather didn't want to die. The bridge didn't have anything on it. Stealing the captain's chair would have been fun, but she needed a getaway plan for something that big.

Kasumi paced some more, her fingers twitching as she tried to resist the impulse to call up her greybox again, and spend the rest of the day drifting in memory.

Without being able to help it, she was already planning the perfect afternoon. The time they had robbed the White House, stowed away on a flight, and then robbed Downing Street in the same day. She might skip over some of the boring flight stuff. Then the beaches of Illium, where they'd gone skinny dipping, and played Marco Polo with their cloaks on.

Then their first date again, that perfect date, behind a sleazy fuel station, munching stolen sandwiches and kicking away overly friendly squirrels, before finally giving in and stealing more sandwiches to feed to the squirrels together.

Finally the night of her birthday. Or at least, they day they agreed should be her birthday, as neither of them had ever wanted to tell the other their real birthday. There were lots of birthdays, but that one, that specific one, was special.

She was just about to cue it all up, but something held her back. It would be fun, she knew. It would be a lot of fun.

And when it was over, she would realise that there were no new memories. That there would never be any new memories every again, and she'd cry herself to sleep, the way she had last night. And the night before that. And the night before that one.

The alternative, however, seemed to be realizing that anyway.

She was just reaching to turn on her omni-tool and start it all up. If this was going to end in tears, she might as well have some fun first. Instead she turned it off, took it off, and chucked it at the bed, half halfheartedly.

“Okay,” she said to herself, as she liked to do when no one was around. “Something to do on this ship. Everyone else lives on this ship. And they don't just sit in their quarters and mope. I know they don't, I've been watching.”

She could spy on someone. But either they'd be doing something boring, which would be... well boring, or they'd be in the middle of a date with someone, or asleep with someone... it'd just make her feel lonely.

“Okay... I could try to get a date...”

Ha. Like anyone on this ship would ever understand her. They didn't even understand her on the Normandy. Tolerate? Sure. Like? Yep. Enjoy? Seemed that way. Understand? … No. And the kleptomania would kill any relationship with anyone who didn't understand.

… Which were all fantastic excuses. Much easier than admitting she still hadn't moved on.

“Not a date then. Ten-Forward?”

It was a bar. Crowds. People. Lots of people. She couldn't even take being in the same room with all her friends at the same time.

She found herself pacing again, getting desperate. If she didn't do something she'd turn on the greybox. And that would be bad. And wonderful. And very bad.

The holodeck was an option, but if she was going to do something fake, she might as well just do the greybox. 

“Captain Picard's ready room?” she said to herself.

She wasn't sure where that thought had come from.

Come to think of it though, when she'd been spying, she'd heard people say the Captain was into archeology, he kept artifacts in his ready room. One of a kind.

And his ready room was on the bridge. Where there was security to keep him safe. Hell, the security chief was right there. A whole room full of people who'd notice the doors slide open...

She'd give it all back of course. It wasn't about the money. Hell, sneaking it all back didn't have the same thrill, but getting kicked off the ship would also be bad, and it would still be at least kinda fun.

“It's settled then,” she said to no one. “Captain Picard's ready room it is.”

Gabby

“Have you seen EDI's new body?”

Gabby sighed internally. And also externally. She had, in fact, seen EDI's new body.

“I knew this was coming.”

“I just mean it's an amazing work of engineering.”

Bullshit.

“Solid state holograms,” Kenneth continued. “Full light projection. Adaptive reflections and dynamic shadows...”

Gabby wasn't buying it. She couldn't manage more than a small “Mmm hmm” while she waited for the other shoe to fall.

“And if she ever wore a sweater, there's so much jiggle physics...”

“Ugh. I knew it.”

“I wish I were that sweater.”

“Well it'd certainly make you more useful.”


	7. Chapter 7

_Citadel Spectre Shepard in the blind, date unknown: The Geth platform known as Legion has informed me he's picked up a signal from a group intelligence. He reports that the message contained no data, just a signal complicated enough to make it clear the nature of the being sending it, and to make it clear it was intended for intended for Legion specifically. Given the close relationship between the reapers and the Geth, I plan to continue investigation into the matter._

Shepard

“Not that they'll believe me, if the report ever gets to them,” Shepard muttered. She was still, technically, an agent of the council, though she hadn't written a single report to them since her revival. They hadn't wanted one, and she was perfectly happy not to have them judging her every move.

But where the reapers were concerned, the Council needed to know. Even if they wouldn't listen, she had to try, at the very least.

She opted to leave Q out of the report entirely. How the hell Picard managed it so his superior officers believed his reports was beyond her. They had to be crazier than hers, and Starfleet swallowed them whole, apparently.

Still... the Borg... possibly the Reapers, godlike beings taunting her... Shepard was starting to get that feeling she got sometimes. The feeling like it was time to take care of any unfinished business, while she still had a chance.

“Shepard to T'Soni... can we talk? In private?”

\----- 

Shepard woke up several hours later. Liara was still unconscious, an arm wrapped around her. Shepard ran her fingers over Liara's exposed skin very gently, wondering how she hadn't noticed before how Liara's skin was almost like a set of tiny, tiny scales more than it was like human skin. But it was still so very soft...

Liara's eyes opened slowly.

“Shepard...” she said, still half asleep. “You're not still worrying you corrupted my pure innocent soul, are you? Because I'm too tired to... 'comfort' you any more right now...”

“No,” Shepard whispered. “I'm okay.”

“Liar.”

Shepard smiled softly. She had the odd feeling of dried tears around her eyes, something she'd have to be sure to wash off later. She hadn't cried in front of someone since...

Ever. Maybe she had in front of her mother, from a scraped knee or something as a child. But she wasn't at all sure. In private, sure, a few times. In front of someone... never.

“I'll be okay.”

Liara must have noticed the look on her face, or the tone in her voice, because, in spite of her tiredness, she took a little sympathy and pulled Shepard closer. “Come here...”

Liara nuzzled Shepard gently, and whispered. “You really are very sweet, and caring, and the sort of person the galaxy needs. … It's just a pity you have an ego the size of a sun.”

“I'm... not sure I follow.”

“I watched you-- No, I helped you, gun down the woman who raised me, while she was trying to murder me because an alien had destroyed her brain... and you think I lost my innocence because you died?” Liara shoved Shepard, gently. “Get over yourself, Fiona. I love you, but you're gonna have to try harder than that if you want to be more traumatic than that day.” 

Shepard laughed slightly, and then realized that it really wasn't all that funny. “I'm sorry... I didn't even think...”

Liara shoved her again. “Are you serious? If you don't stop feeling guilty, I'm going to have to leave you for Garrus.”

“Hey...” Shepard said. “Now you're trying to guilt trip me on purpose.”

“I am. You are stubborn enough that I know the best way to make you stop feeling guilty is to try and make you feel guilty and watch you dig your heels in.”

“So we're at a point where we can make jokes about Garrus now?”

“That depends,” Liara said, smiling the sort of smile that would have been almost unthinkable to see on her face a few years ago. “I would be more forgiving if you thought about him more while we're melded. If you are going to cheat on me, I should at least get some fun mental images.”

Shepard couldn't help but laugh properly this time. “You know, destroying your innocence wasn't all bad... And I didn't cheat. I died. That's enough to absolve a marriage, I think it's enough to absolve an informal relationship.”

“I'll keep that in mind. Next time you die, I'll have to sample some other aliens while I wait for you to come back.”

“You do that.” Shepard pulled her close and spoke more softly. “I love you, Liara.”

“I love you too, Fiona.”

“Picard to Shepard. Meeting in the conference room in fifteen minutes.”

Shepard sighed and tapped the combadge on her nightstand. “Understood, I'm on my way. Shepard out.”

Liara's combadge went off next. “Picard to Dr. T'Soni.”

In spite of the noise, Shepard wasn't quite sure where Liara's combadge had wound up. Liara didn't appear to know either. She'd been much less careful regarding the end destination of her clothing than Shepard had been.

Liara leaned over Shepard and tapped her combadge instead. “T'Soni to Picard. I heard you the first time. T'Soni out.”

“Fifteen minutes...” Shepard said.

Liara smiled. “Not enough time to shower separately...”

Picard

Of the many meetings Picard had attended in the conference room, this was one of the stranger ones. In addition to the usual bridge crew Commander Shepard was joining them as well as Dr. T'Soni, and, almost more strangely, Commander Donatra. The oddest presence of all, however, had to be the Normandy's AI, if for no other reason than her being a spitting image of Data, and sitting right next to him as well.

“The U.S.S. Bradbury will be here in two hours with our new warp core. As soon as the ship is operational, we need to be ready to deal with the Borg threat, in whatever form it might take. Commander Data, you said you had finished your analysis of the Borg device, what do you make of it?”

“It is a very curious device, sir,” Data said. “While it has been made to look like Federation technology, the exact mechanics of the device are beyond the grasp of Federation engineering by at least two years. However, we were able to determine much of the intended function.”

Picard frowned slightly. “Well, Mr. Data?”

“I have been assisting Commander Data in his analysis of the device,” EDI said. “His insights into both the device and human nature have proven most relieving.”

“It appears as though the device has been continually generating a slight inverse warp field since it was installed. The power drain has been small enough that it has managed to go unnoticed,” Data continued. “In addition, it appears as though the computer was altered so as not to notice the addition of the device, or the minor power drain.”

“And the function of this device, android?” Donatra said, seeming almost amused by the conference. Probably due, in part, due to the fact that the last time she saw many of the people there, they were trying to get her cooperation through bizarreness. Picard had been told that Dr. T'Soni, in particular, had been rather extreme.

“I believe I can answer that,” EDI said. “The inverse warp field created by the device is able to reach into our universe, but isn't stable enough to provide any passage. Essentially, there is almost no noticeable effect.”

“Almost no effect?” Liara said.

“Given my understanding of mass effect physics,” said Data. “Supplemented by EDI, of course, the field would, if exposed to a very precise mass effect field, begin a process of stabilization.”

“You're saying the Borg designed the device specifically to bring the Normandy here?” said Liara. “But the odds of our two ships being at the same equivalent space, at the same equivalent time in a galaxy this large, across universes is... well I don't even know...”

“It is a functional impossibility,” said Data.

“Meaning it was not a chance outcome,” said EDI.

“Leading us to believe that, somehow, the Borg are influencing command decisions. Perhaps through a more subtle means of assimilation,” said Data.

“One that would leave the victim appearing physically normal.”

“Allowing the Borg to mimic normal functioning, easy enough with access to the victim's memories, while still controlling certain decisions.”

“This is all very interesting,” Picard said, before the two of them could continue talking. “But to what end? Why the Normandy specifically? Why here?”

“Picard, I thought you'd know,” Donatra said. “You, of all people, I would have imagined to be immune to the failing the Federation has always had regarding the Borg.”

Picard tried to hide any reaction. In honesty, while he remembered everything he had done as Locutus, he did not recall hardly anything about the collective itself. All that information had been part of the hive mind. Stored in other brains all linked to his. With the link gone, so too had gone most of that information.

“Your people have always been terrified of the Borg for the wrong reasons,” said Donatra. “You fear them because they are fast, because they adapt to the damage you throw at them. You should fear them because of their intelligence. They members of your species, captain, and mine. They know how the Federation thinks, and they know how the Romulans think, and the Cardassians think. You treat them like a physical force, an unstoppable object, but you forget their minds.”

“Enlighten us then,” Riker said.

“With pleasure, Commander,” said Donatra. “The Federation has repelled the last two attempts by the Borg to assimilate your homeworld. The margin was narrow, certainly, in each occasion, but still there. Obviously after the destruction of their second cube, they had already put backup plans in place.”

“The Borg sphere that attempted to re-write history,.”

“Exactly. You see, already it's a more cunning approach. Something different than just sending a massive ship to blow you all up. When that failed, they would have installed a device on your ship before they were destroyed. One that would serve two functions. First, it would trigger a war between the Romulans and the Federation, leaving your people, and mine, unprepared for their attack. Secondly, it would...” Donatra glanced at the Normandy crew. “Introduce more biological and technological distinctiveness to add to their own.”

“That is... a very troubling prospect,” said Picard. “But it is not without advantages. If you are correct, the Borg will be waiting for a war to break out. That gives us some time.”

Donatra's smile was suddenly rather grim. “That is, of course, provided we are able to prevent a war from breaking out, Captain.”

“There's a problem with your theory,” Riker said. “The anomaly showed up before we arrived. We can't have caused it.”

“From our perspective, the reaction would appear to stretch not only forwards in time, but backwards, to some degree, as well,” Data said. 

“So it's a paradox,” Picard said. “We caused that which we came to investigate through the act of investigating it. Two ships occupying the same point in space, but separated by another dimension. I've seen this before.”

“Q,” Riker said. “The last time we saw him. But we know the Borg did this. It's not like Q to manipulate them. He likes for us to know it's him.”

“And, given he just showed up, our minds are on him anyway,” Shepard said. “If he were trying to be subtle, the stunt he pulled in my quarters certainly wasn't.”

“You certainly don't have to be an empath to tell Q is arrogant,” Troi said. “I have to agree. It's too similar for there to be no connection, but subtly is not his style. He is a man who once materialized a mariachi band onto the bridge. ” 

“Whatever game Q is playing will have to wait,” Picard said. “We can't afford to ignore the Borg on account of his antics.”

Legion

“Creator Zorah.”

Tali turned to Legion, surprised. “Legion, I thought you had opted to say on the ship. Didn't want to make enemies with a new group of humans and all that.”

“The situation changed. We have brought these for you.”

Legion held up a bundle of flowers that a very confused human in the arboretum had helped them to select.

“I... are those flowers?”

“Correct.”

IR scans showed that Tali was frowning slightly, and her body adopted a position of discomfort.

“We thought you would have a positive emotional response to them.”

“Legion...” Tali said. “Are you... hitting on me?”

The programs took a moment to decide how to respond, and opted to add a hint of confusion to the voice synthesizer. “No, Creator Zorah. We simply wished to help balance out previous negative reactions towards this platform.”

“Oh...” Tali took the flowers hesitantly. “Well... uh... thank you, Legion.”

IR scans detected a hint of a smile as Creator Zorah turned away and continued walking.

Liara

Liara returned to her quarters after the meeting, disturbed by what she had heard, and more than a little frustrated at how disconnected she was. Not only had she already lost her newfound Shadow Broker contacts, but the entire extranet as well. She hoped Feron was paying her subscription to the various archaeology journals. She didn't want to have to resubscribe whenever they got back, and she was not willing to go without.

Outside her window, she could see a distant hint of blue against the blackness of space, which she realized must be the Bradbury. Soon the ship would be moving again. Maybe, once the engineers were less busy, they could use that... inverse warp field they had mentioned to get her access to the extranet.

For now, though, all she had was the Starfleet computer. The economics of the Federation were rather odd, which worked to her advantage, as all the articles from all major publications were free. But she still wanted access to her own resources. All this talk about the Borg was reminding her of something. It wasn't the Geth, though the Borg hivemind seemed similar to the Geth's networked intelligence. Nor was it the reapers, though the thought of their being another species so similar made her skin crawl. She'd seen Shepard's report on the human reaper. Sovereign had been over two kilometers in length. She couldn't begin to imagine how many people were in there, how many minds had made up that horrible machine.

She wondered if this sort of thing was a constant across reality. Organics against a hybrid race that sought to use their bodies and minds as tools for its own will. She dismissed the idea quickly. Not as incorrect or impossible, but as a subject she knew very little about.

And still there was something about all this Borg talk that was stirring a distant corner of her mind. Something she'd seen before. It was enough to make her want to forget about the extranet entirely and just get her old field journals back. There was something. Something she hadn't understood at the time, something she'd been on the cusp of finding out...

And now it was gone from her memory. Almost a hundred years of clutter burying it, making it lost in her mind. She had no idea how Matriarchs could even stay sane.

“Computer, get me everything there is on the Borg.”

Her terminal lit up with all of Starfleet's research on the Borg. All of it she was allowed to see anyway. Tali might be able to help with that, at least to a degree. Beyond that, she'd learned a few good ways of hacking into systems from her brief time as the Shadow Broker. She had no idea if it would work on these systems, but it was worth a try.

In terms of public information on the Borg was tiny. All of three real encounters, two by the U.S.S. Enterprise D, and one by this ship. Technically two of those encounters had been large scale battles, in which the Federation had fared... poorly. It looked like there were a handful of over encounters recorded by the U.S.S. Voyager, but it looked like Voyager's entire trip was confidential information.

Most of the data came from an encounter, again by the Enterprise D, with a lone Borg, who they had been able to study to a degree, and a second encounter with the same lone Borg, now part of a sort of... miniature collective.

There were some highly theoretical papers by a Commander Shelby as well, though Liara wasn't sure what they were based on, as they were all written between the first and second Borg encounters, when there was literally nothing but the Enterprise's original finds to study.

All of it was worthless to Liara. The origin of their species was unknown. No dig sites gave hints to their past. They were from a distant edge of the galaxy that the Federation could not reach. Nothing to help her.

Liara sighed and fetched a cup of coffee. She considered trying to ask Tali up to help her get into the restricted files, but... there were other ways of hacking a system...

“Computer, is it possible I could contact Commander Shelby? … A video call?”

“Such an action would be possible.”

Liara pulled up Commander Shelby's records. She'd been engaged once before, to a man, and called it off later. It was possible she'd be attracted to an Asari, but Liara didn't want to gamble with it. She wasn't sure what it was that made her species appeal to everyone, but be it telepathy of pheromones, it probably wouldn't work, not unless Shelby had some previous exposure to Asari, which she didn't. 

If she wanted to charm the records out of someone, she'd need a man, attractive by human standards. Thane, maybe, but he might not be willing to go for it, and a coughing fit in the middle of the call probably wouldn't help. She didn't think it'd get sympathy points out of Shelby anyway.

Of course, she knew Garrus was attractive to at least one human. In fact, having had access to a lot of private records and e-mails, she knew that Garrus was attractive to a lot of humans. 

“T'Soni to Vakarian.”

“Yeah, Liara?”

“Is there any chance you could come up here and help me charm confidential files out of a Starfleet Commander? Over the vidscreen, of course.”

“I'm... not sure I follow.”

“You know that thing in human movies, where the beautiful Asari has to get vital information by seducing it out of someone?”

Garrus laughed. “Sure, it's in, like, every one of them after they met your species. You got it lucky. Years after the first contact war, we're still cackling villains who wind up dying in horrible, yet oddly karmic ways.”

“... I've never heard a Turian cackle.”

“Exactly. But, interesting as human films are, I'm not sure I see your point.”

Liara highly suspected Garrus saw her point perfectly and just wanted her to say it out loud. Which didn't mean she had to phrase it the way he wanted her to.

“What I'm saying, Garrus, is I need you to come up here and be a beautiful Asari for me.”

“Sounds fun. Do I get to wear a slinky dress?”

Liara considered this and shrugged. “If you think that'll work, sure, why not?”

Thane

Thane still wasn't entirely sure why he'd been invited to the conference. 

He wasn't an engineer. He wasn't a physicist. He didn't know anything about Borg, or inverse warp fields, or other universes. He had little to say about fighting an enemy like the Borg. 

Maybe they just wanted everyone to be on the same page, but Thane didn't know how to prepare to fight against an enemy like that either. The Collectors had been one thing. They were powerful, yes, but they had no special defense against bullets. They didn't adapt, no matter how many you shot in the head.

What he has learned disturbed him. The soul suffered when the body was ill, and vice-versa. What happened to the souls of those the collective took? He would like to think they passed on, and yet he gathered the captain had once been a victim of the Borg. Clearly they did not pass on to the afterlife. 

He wasn't sure how many Borg there were, but he imagined they numbered in the billions. Billions of wounded souls with no hope of release until their physical bodies were no longer useful as tools. 

“Arashu, Mistress of Loving Shields, protect me from harm until I have completed my tasks. Amonkira, Lord of Hunters, grant that my hands me steady, my feet be true, and my aim swift. Grant me the strength I need. Kalahira, Mistress of Inscrutable Depths... grant their souls safe passage onto distant shores.” 

Perhaps this was another chance to help make things right. To help at least a few more lost souls. Once he had chosen to murder out of revenge and hatred, neglecting what family he had left when he was most needed. What he had done with Shepard, what Borg he managed to free, he didn't think would undo that. Perhaps he would be forgiven, perhaps not. Still, what he did now mattered in its own right. 

It was something to live for, anyway, with what time he had left.


	8. Chapter 8

_Chief Engineer's Log, Stardate 53545.0: The new warp core provided by the Bradbury is installed and online. It will take some time to get the matter/antimatter injection ratio calibrated to an optimal state, but the ship is now operational. Due to the extensive damage to some areas of the ship during the battle, and the need for the majority of the engineering team to work out any kinks in the new warp core hookup, the captain has ordered us to set course for the nearest starbase at whatever cruising speed that we have confidence the engine can maintain. Right now we're starting her off on warp 1 to see how she performs, and work out any problems. We hope to have her running at warp five by the time we reach starbase._

Tali

“...So the anti-matter reactions are mostly controlled by magnetic fields. That way it never comes into contact with any regular matter, and the ship is safe. … Provided we adjust the containment fields to block out interference from your drive core. The Bradbury made the adjustments en route though, so we shouldn't be in danger of losing containment again.”

Tali shook her head slightly, listening to Geordi's explanation of the warp drive. In honestly, she'd learned most of it on her own, but she asked him about it anyway because she liked listening to him talk about it. He just got so passionate whenever he talked about the engines. It was something Tali could relate to.

“I'm just glad we're getting to move away from this neutral zone everyone's been making a fuss about. We take galactic politics pretty seriously in my universe. … Well everyone else does. To be honest, I don't think most Quarians could even name the council members. We're fairly isolated. But enough time with Shepard and you pick it up...”

Geordi nodded slightly, checking over a pad before handing it off to another engineer.

“I think we're finally operational enough that I'm not directly needed here. My team can handle any issues that prop up. What say we do something fun?”

Tali folded her arms slightly. “You are doing something fun. Don't tell me you haven't been having a good time hooking up the new engine. I would have a field day if I got to hook up a new engine.”

Geordi laughed at that. “Okay, you've got a point, but it has been keeping me away from you for a while. And most of the fun stuff is done. So, what do you want to do?”

“Actually... it probably isn't what you were hoping for, but I wanted to talk about the Borg... I thought you might know a few things about their cybernetics... The records I found said you did some work with a lone Borg?”

Geordi nodded slightly and headed out of engineering, making one final adjustment before he left.

“Hugh, yeah. He was a friend, actually.”

Tali shifted her shoulders in something akin to a playful smile. “Of course he was your friend. Data... the warp core... a holographic simulation of one of the engine designers... I'm sensing a pattern regarding your friends. Should I be jealous of EDI?”

“You've got a point. I guess it's nice to have friends I can do repair work on. I'm gonna be honest, EDI creeps me out a little bit. I'm not really afraid of her, but... her attempts at humor are a little darker than Data's.”

“That's what you get when you leave her in the cockpit with Joker all day,” Tali said. “I'm a little surprised she doesn't imitate some of his... less family friendly jokes. Not that I'm not grateful. I let Joker make gags about my hips because he's... I suppose saying like family would be creepy at this point, but we have an understanding. But no one else.”

Tali followed Geordi as he walked into the holodeck, though she was a little puzzled by what exactly Geordi was doing in the holodeck if they were going to study the Borg.

“Computer,” Geordi said. “Biotech study lab, fully stocked, sandbox experimentation style, and all the borg tech you've got.”

Tali gasped slightly as the room transformed into an orderly laboratory, with shelves full of obvious cybernetic implants lining the walls on shelves, and more diagnotic tools than she'd ever dreamed of. The only downside to the setup was how orderly it was. All the tools were put away in their spots, just so. All the implants were lined up neatly, almost like someone had spaced them out with a ruler.

“This is amazing,” Tali said. “I guess, as it's all simulated you can do basically whatever you want without worrying about running out of supplies, or breaking the implants.”

“Pretty much. It's got limitations as well. Basically, it's an interactive computer simulation, so you can't do anything too groundbreaking with it. If the computer doesn't know how something will turn out, it's not going to be able to give you a good simulation. But it's still good for invention, tinkering, study. Basically you can get the computer to simulate any sort of hypothetical test with the equipment you care to run.”

“Computer,” Tali said after a moment of thought. “Add in quarian biotech implants based on Dr. Crusher's scans and research.”

The projection vanished and reappeared, now with new shelves of, admittedly, much less aggressive looking implants.

“I didn't realize you had any implants.”

“Extensive ones,” said Tali. “We live in suits, after all. So... blood filtration systems are a big one, waste management, hair growth inhibitors... all of the things you need, really.” Tali opted not to mention the nerve-stim.

“Makes sense. You certainly wouldn't be the only species. Even the captain has an artificial heart. The Borg just... take it a little bit farther than most would consider ethical.”

Tali picked up an implant and examined it. It certainly was odd. They all seemed to have a distinct theme to them, a visual style, but it looked like it had been tossed together out of whatever had been avalible, even moreso than Quarian technology. Quarian implants were very well made, their lives depended on them after all. In terms of ships, or other technology, usually it started out as one item. A turian ship, perhaps, or a cargo vessel. Usually a cargo vessel. Over the years, it might have bits from other ships, or things that were never designed to be part of a ship at all added to it, as it broke down. Extra cargo containers added to the tail end of a ship, sometimes, or a bit of Turian technology painstakingly wired through an Asari computer to hook up with a human engine.

These implants looked like they were slapdash from the start though. They were made by a race that didn't repair what broke down in any way they could. They were made by a race that broke down everything they came into contact with and reassembled it.

“A lot of these components look like Enterprise components,” Tali said, quietly.

“A lot of them are. Most Borg self destruct on death. As a result, most of our recovered Borg technology is from when they invaded this ship. They used nanoprobes, sure, but also bits of whatever they could find. Really, the only Borg data we have that wasn't from the invasion came from either the implants Dr. Crusher removed from the captain, or what we learned from Hugh.”

Tali nodded slightly. She couldn't help but be reminded of the husks she'd seen while fighting with Shepard. From what she knew of the Borg, they weren't so heavily augmented, but it hardly made any difference at that point.

“All right, let's see if we can't find some sort of useful... anti-Borg device with what we've got. … I can't work like this though.” Tali decided to try a command to the computer on the off chance that it actually worked. “Computer, increase the clutter of half the lab by 75%.”

To Tali's amazement, the computer did so. Now it looked like a lab she could get behind.

Shepard

Shepard walked out of the phaser range, a little uneasy about these new weapons.

The hand phasers were obviously inferior in terms of aim. They had an auto target function, but Shepard didn't exactly trust it to target for her. It's not like the phaser new friend from foe, and she didn't want to melt off the other side of Garrus's face trying to shoot a husk off him.

Without the auto target, however, they were awkwardly shaped, which made pointing them at a target hard, and they didn't have any sort of sights on them. It was actually easier to shoot the smaller version of the thing, that looked like a tiny remote control, because at least that one didn't have a curved handle. She was starting to believe Picard when he said the Federation was peaceful. Their weapons certainly indicated a culture that didn't have to use them much.

The phaser rifles had been far better. For one thing, they seemed to shoot in bursts instead of beams, which was far more to Shepard's liking, and they were fair easier to aim, even having flip up sights. Ultimately, however, the things were still... light. They felt like toys. And, to be honest, Shepard rarely had the need to vaporize anyone, so the added firepower didn't help to compensate for the insanely slow speed of the projectile. She ultimately decided that she'd stick with keeping one of the smaller phasers around, just in case she wanted someone knocked out, and stick with regular guns apart from that.

She found herself returning to her quarters for a shower. She certainly needed one, and she still preferred good, warm water over a sonic shower. She found herself cautious, however, as she got there, given last time.

“... Q?”

And, suddenly, with a flash of light, he was there.

“God damn it, can't I shower in peace?”

“You wound me, Commander! I only came because you called me. But... since I'm here...”

Shepard folded her arms, feeling like this might have to be her default position when dealing with Q. It was already her default position when scolding Grunt...

“It's your girlfriend, Liara, in fact. I thought you might want to know what she was up to. It seems she's been looking through all the archeological databases. Even some she shouldn't have access to.”

“The archeologist is studying archeology. Good thing I have an omniscient being to tell me these things, or I'd be lost.”

Q smiled. “Specifically where it related to the Borg.”

“Half my crew is studying the Borg. Tali and the chief engineer here are looking at implants, and probably doing other things I don't want to know about together. Mordin is studying the deassimilation technique. Last time I talked to Garrus he was making note of their ability to adapt and creating a list of new and interesting ways he might kill them. Miranda is doing intensive biotic training, in case of a fight with them...”

“Liara was lamenting the lack of access to her journals from your universe. I know, I know. Obvious. Still... that lovely Federation science could help.”

Shepard glared. It sounded like they did have enough information to get access to the extranet, with a little help from Tali, and that could wind up being invaluable. The only issue was... it was Q suggesting it.

“And you're invested in this... why exactly?”

“Oh, let's just say I am and leave it at that.”

“Let's not.”

“Why must dealing with humans always be so difficult? Suffice it to say, I'm on your side. I hoped that you would be more receptive.” Q's eyes were suddenly glowing softly and mechanical, his clothing a modern style suit, with the top unbuttoned, one hand holding a cigarette that, while releasing smoke, had no apparent odor. His other hand clutched a glass of burbon. “Perhaps you'd be more receptive this way?”

“Because that worked out so well.”

“You stopped the collectors, saved however many unimportant, fleeting human lives, not to mention a free ship and crew. It didn't even really end badly. I'm not asking you to like me any more than you liked the Illusive Man, and I don't expect any greater degree of loyalty.”

Shepard wasn't entirely sure of how to respond to that. He was, of course, right in the fact that her association with the Illusive Man had turned out well for her so far. She still wasn't sure what the long term consequences would be, but it had to be worth stopping the collector threat, surely.

“Ah, the silent treatment,” said Q. “You don't know what to do now. You don't have any good information, you don't know the stakes, and you don't know who you are dealing with. I'll make it simple. Lives are riding on this, billions of them, including you, your girlfriend, and the rest of your crew. And all I'm asking is for something you think would be useful anyway.”

“You wouldn't be asking if there weren't long term consequences involved.”

Q laughed at that. “Of course not, commander. But you've already decided. You won't risk billions of lives through inaction on the off chance I'm lying. Especially not when you can't see any danger.”

And then Q vanished before even waiting for a response.

It was only about three seconds before Shepard was forced to admit that he was right.

Joker

“You mean there was a time when you were letting a kid fly your ship? You're kidding me...”

Dr. Crusher glared slightly. “That 'kid' was my son, almost an adult, and he was an exceptional pilot.”

“Yeah, look, no offense, I'm sure he's some sort of wunderkind or whatever, but I tried a piloting sim. There's no soul to these ships. It's just pressing buttons and letting the computer do all the work. And they handle like cows. Not sea cows either. Land cows.” 

“And I suppose pushing the buttons harder to try and make the ship steer faster is how you broke your fingers?” Crusher sighed and started to run the knitter over his broken fingers.

“Damn. I'm gonna have to get me one of those,” Joker said, flexing his newly repaired fingers slightly.” He privately blamed the holodeck. He'd been told it had safety features, and the computer had his medical data. He figured it'd keep him from breaking anything. Maybe the rumors that Samara broke one of Worf's ribs had some merit after all. It'd be nice not to be the first one to break something for a change.

“Have fun fusing your knuckles into a single solid mass due to lack of medical training.”

“Yeah, okay, maybe not. … Although even if I did do that, I could probably still be a helmsman here. I swear, you might as well let EDI fly the ship.”

“Maybe you should try shuttles. They're a little easier to move about.”

Joker mimed gagging. “Better idea, let's get Tali to put one of those warp things in the Normandy. Now that would be fun...”

Kasumi

Kasumi was a little disappointed in how easy it had been to gain access to Captain Picard's ready room. It just involved shadowing Picard until he went inside it. As long as she walked through the doors at the same time he did, no one seemed to suspect anything. It'd been a simple, if somewhat dull, matter to wait until he left the room so she could have a proper look around.

What she saw was rather disappointing, even if it made sense. There seemed to be almost nothing of interest. She'd heard people mention his collection, but, when she thought about it, every story that involved some sort of date had been old, back around the time of the Enterprise-D. Probably a lot of the ancient relics had gotten destroyed when the ship crashed. It appeared as though either Picard had given up collecting, or was now storing his collection somewhere it would be less likely to hit a planet at any great speed. There were a few decorations here and there, nothing of any real value that she could tell. It all looked like reproductions, or decorations with no real value to begin with. 

She did smile slightly as she saw the bookshelf, however, glad to see she wasn't the only one to bring physical books on a starship, even if Picard's collection had more literary classics, and fewer copies of Swords and Shields. Kasumi got excited at first, thinking some of them were first editions, but she eventually uncovered a small stamp betraying them as being new books that were simply replicated to look like the first edition. Apparently originals still had enough value of some sort that replicators wouldn't make fakes without marking them as such. She was slightly relieved by the fact that the Jefferson Bible had been a fake though. It meant the real one was probably still waiting for her in the Smithsonian. 

As Kasumi searched for valubles she realized what else it was she wasn't finding: photographs. Shepard had kept a holo of Liara in her cabin, even before they'd gotten together again. Most people who owned a desk kept at least one photograph on it. 

Eventually, tucked away in a drawer, Kasumi found a photo album and a small box. None of the pictures in the album looked like Picard though. Kasumi didn't know what he looked like when he was young, it was certainly hard to imagine him with hair, but none of the pictures had a strong resemblance. Most of them featured a child however, and one of them had a bottle of wine labeled “Chateau Picard.” Relatives maybe, but there was no hint of the captain in any of them. 

The box contained a small flute. It was simple, but not quite like any Kasumi had seen before. On top of that, it looked old. It could have been replicated to look old, but Kasumi suspected it was the real deal. 

It was a strange thing to hold, and Kasumi suspected the value of it was actually very little. It wasn't on display, clearly. She couldn't fathom what it meant, but it obviously meant something. It was important somehow. 

Kasumi gently put the photo album and the box back the way she found them and waited for someone to walk in so she could leave undetected. 

Legion

In the Normandy AI core, Legion powered up again, far more quickly this time, as his programs detected another transmission.

All of them had a go at decoding it. All of them shared their findings with all of the others. It was a very short message, and when they had finished, the platform spoke it out loud.

“Zha'til.”


	9. Chapter 9

_Captain's Log, Stardate 53545.5: We are currently imitating docking procedures with Starbase 39-Sierra, where we will be met by a repair crew to patch up the damage we suffered in the Romulan attack. Several Starfleet Admirals have also arrived, or are on their way, in order to decide the fate of Commander Donatra. I confess, I will be attending the meeting as well in the hopes that this can all go smoothly._

Shepard

“I don't know, Liara, I'm just... not sure about this...” Tali said, as Shepard walked into her Enterprise quarters. The place was a mess of wires, and chips, and other strange technology Shepard wasn't even going to try to understand.

“Not sure about what, Tali?”

“I was asking Tali to help me... broker shadows in this universe, as well as ours. We've almost got a connection to the extranet again. Thank you for helping get that set up, by the way. I'll be back in business soon.”

“I'm not sure about it,” Tali said, shifting anxiously. “We're guests on this ship... we shouldn't repay the captain by spying on his people... Especially when giving us technology is against their rules...”

“Rules their chief engineer is breaking in order to get into your suit,” Liara pointed out.

Tali just stammered and squiggled a bit.

“I understand you're uneasy about it,” said Liara. “But you know you were going to hand everything you learned over to the flotilla.”

“Yeah...” Tali admitted.

“Tell you what then. I won't sell any of their technical schematics. That'll give your people an edge. They'll be able to sell the new technology to... anyone and everyone. At least for a little while, everyone will be trying to get into the quarian's good graces for a change. You could probably get my people to give you a couple of cruisers in return for warp core plans. Think of how much that would help your people.”

“Yes, but...”

“And, if I have access to the Federation's secrets, it'll only be a matter of time before I can do the same thing with the Romulans. If I do that, I can stop any potential wars before they start.”

Tali hesitated and nodded. “All right. I'll work out a way for you to bug their systems. But you get to deploy the bugs. I'm just going to design them. All the... covert secret work is on you.”  
Liara beamed. “Thank you, Tali.”

“Just one problem,” said Shepard. “The Federation has no money. How are you going to get them to buy secrets from you?”

“With favors,” said Liara. “That's what I usually do anyway. In this case... well it'd help make sure the Federation and the Council have a good relationship. … And, once that's established, I'm sure I could start talks for the Quarians to become a Federation race. They don't tend to interfere in the cultures of other races. The Quarians would go about much as they are... but with allies and help.”

“That's an... interesting idea,” said Tali. “But we're somewhat... isolationist....”

“I could make it happen,” said Liara. “What's more, once the Quarians realized the benefits of being in the Federation, they wouldn't want to leave... and the Federation wouldn't tolerate a war with the Geth.”

Tali's eyes lit up slightly. Shepard knew whatever her feelings were towards the Geth, Tali loved her people first and foremost, and didn't want to see them destroyed in another pointless war. She also rather suspected that Tali wasn't at all sure she wanted to see the Geth destroyed either.

“You're really good at this Shadow Broker thing...” Tali said.

“It helps to have a VI around to help keep track of things,” Liara admitted. “But some of it may be my old Kepesh-Yakshi skills transferring over. It's not so different. You just make sure all the pieces are in the right place, and everything falls in order, just so.”

Tali resumed her work. “Well, I should have you connected again soon. There's some rewiring I need to do in order to make this come out right. It's designed for a totally different transmission structure than what's on the ship...”

“Do you... always make this big a mess while working?” Liara asked, hesitantly.

Tali shrugged. “I work on Quarian ships. Usually the workplace wasn't this clean to start with. I'll tidy up when I'm done, don't worry.”

“Looking forward to getting back to work I see then,” said Shepard.

Liara smiled at her. “Not going to worry that helping me get this position is slowly corrupting me?”

“No, I'm just worried you'll see my extranet history.”

“Oh, I already saw that. I'd make fun of it, but I think poor Tali would blush herself to death.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” said Tali. “Dextro coffee,” she added, in the direction of the replicator.

“That's your fourth cup today,” said Liara. “That I've seen.”

“Yeah, I'm trying to cut back a little,” said Tali.

Shepard shook her head slightly. “I'll leave you two to it then. If you find anything interesting in your archaeological research, let me know.”

Liara tilted her head slightly. “Shepard, I didn't think you were interested in archeology.”

“I can have layers.”

“And I've been in your head. Let me rephrase. You aren't interested in archeology unless you think it has relevance to whatever thing you're shooting at the moment. What aren't you telling me? Why the sudden push to get me extranet access?”

“I'll tell you. But... let's talk about it alone, okay?”

Liara nodded slightly. “All right. If you're going to be walking around in the starbase, I don't suppose I could talk you in to planting any bugs, could I?”

“I am a respectable Alliance officer, I don't know what you're talking about. And I certainly wouldn't know of anyone who would love that sort of job, like a professional thief, or anything like that.”

Liara nodded. “Message received and understood. Go have fun on the starbase.”

Picard

Picard did not like the thought of meeting with the admirals.

As he waked into the room, he reflected on the fact that this may be because he was on rather poor terms with most of them.

Fleet Admiral Nechayev was one of the first faces he recognized. They'd had several issues in the past, particularly over Picard's decision not to attempt genocide against the Borg. She seemed to be presiding here as well.

Vice Admiral Hayes was next. The man who'd thought Picard was too emotionally compromised to fight against the Borg. While Picard's disregard for his order to patrol the Neutral Zone instead of fighting off the latest invasion had saved the Federation... the reasoning behind that order may not had been too far off.

Vice Admiral Nakamura, who'd tried to have his second officer disassembled for research.

Vice Admiral Ross. Picard knew little of the man personally. His official reputation was very good, being the Admiral who'd signed a peace treaty with the Dominion. Unofficially, he was in Section 31's pocket. Normally Picard wouldn't trust a rumor, but the source of this one was Dr. Bashir himself.

Then there was Vice Admiral Heftel, who'd tried to order Data to relinquish custody of his daughter.

Finally Vice Admiral Henry, head of Starfleet security, sat next to Admiral Nechayev. Picard didn't know him especially well, having only met him once, and not having spoken to him at that, given that Picard was on trial at the time. Still, Picard had gotten the impression his condemnation of the mockery of justice had won him some points with Admiral Henry.

The only person in the room Picard had any relationship with at all was Admiral Janeway, who’d entered the room even later than he had.

“Sorry I’m late,” Janeway said. “Though at least it didn’t take me seven years this time.”

The joke went over about as well as a lead balloon. Picard sighed and settled in. It was going to be a long meeting.

Liara

Liara quietly took off her combadge and left it behind in her quarters. She wasn't required to wear the thing, so no one would comment on the fact that it was off. And Liara did not particularly want to be tracked for this.

“Deck twenty four,” she said as she walked into the overcrowded turbolift. Hopefully that was far down enough she'd get the lift to herself at some point.

Sure enough, as the lift went down through the ship, as well as sideways, and, it seemed, diagonally, everyone else slowly filtered out.

“Cancel,” said Liara, bringing the lift to a halt. “Brig.”

Just as the lift stopped, Liara set her omni-tool to record and walked inside, giving the guard a polite smile, and fluttering her eyelashes just a bit. She knew she wouldn't be able to make it in completely undetected, but the less attention she got while she was in there, the better. As she moved towards Donatra's cell, she made sure to move her hips just enough the guard would not be thinking about why she was here, and just be glad she was here, while still looking to be innocent and naïve as to the effect she was having.

“Commander Donatra?” she said, adopting a slight fidget, imitating Tali. She'd been quite fidgety herself, not all that long ago, but no one fidgeted in a way that betrayed horrible awkwardness quite like Tali, bless her. “I... I just wanted to say I... well I'm sorry about... before, when I threw glass at your face. It was... I mean, it was just an act, you know?”

“Hmm. Yes, quite.”

Not quite the reply Liara was hoping for, not if she wanted Donatra's voice patterns.

“I just... wasn't sure you realized. Really, my people aren't fond of violence, so we try to be a little more subtle...”

Donatra glared. “Oh, please. Your quaint little deception is nothing compared to the fine art of a Romulan ploy.”

Bingo.

“I just thought...”

“Thought us fools? You've a lot to learn. The best deceptions are woven deeply enough that there is no possible action to take but directly into the web. Take the Federation. They know our reputation, so they know to be alert for deception. But does it help? Rarely. For, in trying to avoid the trap, they blunder directly into it instead.”

Liara nodded along as Donatra continued to talk, making it look like she was slightly afraid and learning a valuable lesson. By the time it was done, she had more than enough.

Back in her quarters, she checked on her terminal. Kasumi was busy planting devices across the Starbase. She'd be connected soon enough there. That left her time to get into at least some of the Romulan files.

It didn't take too long before Liara managed a subspace connection to the Romulan command computer. Crafty as the Romulans may be, Liara doubted they were much better with password security than anyone else. It was a simple matter to translate the serial number she had given during her interrogation into Romulan, and have a reconstruction of her voice read it out to the Romulan computer.

“Too easy,” Liara said to herself as she was logged in as Commander Donatra, with full access to anything Donatra would have been able to view. “Much too easy.”

Liara then swore under her breath and threw a cloth over the screen as her doorbell rang.

“Come in,” she said out loud and innocently.”

Much to her surprise, it was Legion who walked in.

“Oh, hello, Legion. I wasn't expecting you to visit...” she said, uncovering the screen. “Is there something you need?”

“We have received a transmission,” said Legion. “One word. Zah'til. We have heard you mention this word, T'Soni-Doctor. We wish to know its meaning.

Liara frowned at that. “Zah'til... that does ring a bell... hold on a moment, let me look it up... I think it came up in one of my journals.”

It was such a specific keyword, it didn't take Liara any time to find a match for it.

“Here we are. I remember now, they were a race from around the time of the Protheans. The only mention of them is in a bit of... admittedly somewhat roughly translated Prothean log. There's little context, but apparently they had... implanted themselves with an AI to try and make themselves more intelligent. It went... wrong, somehow. Very wrong. It's... not clear on exactly how it went wrong, but the Protheans... well they had to blow up their planet as an act of mercy towards the poor things.”

“Transmission was targeted specifically for this platform. Indicated Prothean destruction of Zah'til incomplete. Also suggests Zah'til have specific interest in this program.”

Zah'til. That was what had reminded Liara of the Borg. That was what it was that made her think she'd seen something like them before.

She read the translation of the log again. She hadn't looked at it since before Sovereign. Knowing what she knew about the Protheans now, bits of it started to fall into place. Phrases and statements that had been marked as not properly translated started to make sense to her now. It had been the Reapers. The Reapers had corrupted the AI of the Zah'til, much like they had corrupted the hieratic Geth, and bent the Zah'til to their will, using the machine implants to change them. The Prothean destruction had been an act of war against the Reapers, not a mercy killing.

Liara briefly regretted that she'd never be able to publish this interpretation without getting laughed out of academia. Again.

“T'Soni-Doctor?”

“Just... give me a moment, Legion...”

Without thinking about it, Liara felt herself pacing, starting to feel almost overwhelmed as images of Zah'til, Borg, Romulans, and Rachni flashed through her mind. If there was one thing that had made her good as an archaeologist, it was seeing where the patterns were. She'd found dig sites where no one else had thought to look by noticing patterns. She'd been called young and disregarded several times as she extrapolated patterns, but she had always, always been right. She was good at seeing when things moved in cycles. 

Then, suddenly, it all clicked into place.

Liara ran back over to her terminal and started to look through Donatra's logs, skimming mostly, but it didn't take her long at all to find what she was looking for.

Liara scrambled for her combadge, not remembering where she'd put it in her sudden haste before she finally found it, in plain view next to her teacup.

“Security to the Starbase conference room! Alert Commander Shepard as well!” 

Liara pulled her Locust SMG from her locker and switched it to disruptor ammo before rushing out, shoving people out of her way with biotics. They’d be okay, and she didn’t have time to explain.

Picard

Picard was making an active effort not to fall asleep, as Admiral Ross and Admiral Heftel debated the finer points of the Romulan treaty, if the Federation had broken it during the Dominion war, etc.

The outcome of the debate may be important, but the aspects of the treaty, as far as Picard was concerned, were not. Both sides could point fingers at the other. The treaty would not dictate action, it would just be used to justify it.

And then, very suddenly, Admiral Ross changed the subject.

“The treaty is irrelevant,” he declared. In spite of Picard's agreement, it was curious and unfortunate that he had not said this an hour and a half ago. “I think it's well known that this involves more than just Commander Donatra. Starfleet intelligence managed to recover several ancient artifacts the Romulans were studying.”

Admiral Ross passed several small objects around, until everyone at the table was holding one.

“The Daystrom institute, is, of course, investigating. We believe they may be part of some sort of weapon, though we don't believe the artifacts themselves to be harmful. I was instructed to tell you to keep hold of them, see what sort of conclusions you can make.”

Finally something Picard could talk about... though not much, admittedly.

“It's certainly not Romulan in origin,” Picard said, turning the strange object over in his hands. “In fact it doesn't match the art style of any culture I've studied. It's curious that there doesn't seem to be any form of writing on it either. Does anyone else have one with any writing?”

After a close examination, the Admirals indicated that their pieces were similarly bare.

“Well,” said Admiral Ross. “I advise you study it closely, Picard. Though it is confidential, I have to ask you don’t show it to anyone—“

It was at that moment that several things happened at once, or nearly at once. The first thing that happened was the door, tightly locked for security reasons, was suddenly blasted open.

The several things that happened secondly was the general scrambled and chaos away from the blast. Admiral Ross, in particular, seemed to be using Admiral Henry as a human shield.

The third thing that happened was Commander Shepard, as well as Liara and Garrus, moving in through what was left of the door frame. Shepard's gun seemed to be trained particularly on Admiral Ross.

“Commander, what in the hell--”

Shepard's response was directed at Admiral Ross, and not Picard. “Let go of the Admiral and back away. Now.”

Picard noticed that Shepard was right. Admiral Ross was, as he had first observed, using Admiral Henry as a shield. He was not, however, simply cowering behind the Admiral as Picard had thought at first glance, but rather keeping his arm around the Admiral's neck.

“All right,” Picard said trying to keep his voice level. “This is just a misunderstanding. I'm sure we can all just... stand down.”

And that was when two Borg injection tubules sprung from Admiral Ross's fist and buried themselves in Admiral Henry's neck.

There was a blue flash as Liara thrust her hand out, one of the now abandoned chairs hurling itself at Admiral Ross, knocking him away from Admiral Henry, followed by the brighter muzzle flash of Shepard's gun as she put three shots from her pistol into him.

Picard's hand went to his combadge as he looked at Admiral Henry in horror. “Medical Emergency in the conference room!”

He wasn't at all sure that Admiral Henry could be saved. His neck was bleeding profusely from the tubules being suddenly wrenched out, though Liara was already applying medi-gel. If the assimilation process could be reversed in time was another matter entirely.

Shepard then snatched the object out of Picard's hand. Picard had actually forgotten he'd been holding it, though he was oddly reluctant to give it up. In addition to being a major find, it was oddly beautiful.

“Where did you get this?” Shepard demanded.

“Admiral Ross had--”

“That makes sense,” said Liara. “Passing out Reaper artifacts to high ranking members of Starfleet, obviously. And if I'm right the Borg-”

In a blaze of orange light, Admiral Ross was lifted off the ground. Bits of clothes and artificial flesh burned away to show the Borg implants they had been covered. Shortly the Admiral was on the ground again, though back on his feet, and with the strange light still burning in his eyes.

“We,” he said, in a voice much different from his own. “Are Harbinger. That which you know as 'Reapers' are your salvation through destruction. Resistance is futile.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Janeway pops up everywhere.

Picard

The noise was almost deafening. Shepard had pulled out some sort of massive gun that looked almost like an anti-personnel rifle. Garrus was laying into the monster with his own rifle. Liara had thrown some sort of blue field at it that osculated and shimmered in a way that was painful to even look at, much less be in the middle of.

And then several more Borg beamed in, snatching the Admirals and beaming them out. Picard snatched a gun off Shepard's leg and opened fire on the Borg that approached him. The gun, as it happened, was some sort of sub-machine gun, the technology of the other universe making it almost devoid of recoil, and adding some sort of odd electrical effect that sliced through the Borg's shields and, rather satisfyingly, seemed to short out the Borg's mechanical components.

Then the gun stopped working.

Rather than trying to work out how to reload the thing, and with what, Picard grabbed Shepard's pistol, making a note to apologize later, and shot down the Borg that was advancing on Admiral Henry's body. That gun, unlike the SMG, packed a kick to it.

Janeway slapped a device on the Borg that attempted to grab her, which apparently caused the Borg to transport away, as Liara fired her gun, a twin to the SMG Picard had grabbed, at the Borg who had grabbed Admiral Heftel. This time, the Borg shields crackled and sparked, but held.

Almost as soon as it had started, it was over. The monster that had once been Admiral Ross was no more. Most of the Borg had beamed out with their captives in tow. The only Admiral left was Janeway. The room was silent for a few seconds, before a medical team, as well as a belated but quite large security detail rushed in and removed Admiral Henry. Another sudden flurry of activity that was gone almost as soon as it was started, as the team beamed Henry directly to the base's medical area.

“By the Goddess, they really did it,” Liara said softly.

“Yeah,” said Shepard. “About that, I think you have time to explain. Unless we can go after the Admirals?”

Picard shook his head, slightly at a loss for where exactly the Borg could have beamed in or out from. “We have no way to trace the transport. Maybe they had a cloaked ship, maybe they're still somewhere on the station. If the former, they're far out of reach by now. Station security will be doing a sweep for the latter. Admiral, what exactly was that?”

“Personal transporter device,” Janeway said. “It's still in development. They don't work right yet, they don't remateralize at all. I took one in case of things like this.”

Liara nodded slightly. “Legion... he got another transmission, and it reminded me of something I'd read before, about the Protheans. It was the name of a species. They were originally the Zah, but they implanted themselves with an AI, the Til, and became the Zah'til.”

Zah'til. Yes. The name was familiar in some distant corner of Picard's memory. He had heard that name before. It was an important name, but Picard could not place it. It just brough to Picard a feeling, and idea of a past so long ago, it was beyond imagining, and yet still in living memory.

“The Zah'til were enslaved by the Reapers,” Liara continued. “Much like the heretic Geth. The Reapers were able to turn the AI, and the AI was able to control the organic beings. After that they were easy to indoctrinate as well. The Protheans attempted to destroy them entirely. The journals I read... I always thought they had some sort of superweapon that had destroyed the Zah'til homeworld. It was confusing, because I didn't understand how they could fall to the Reapers with that firepower. They didn't destroy it though, they just moved it. It wouldn't work as a weapon, you'd need ages to make the calculations, and you'd need to know exactly where the target would be. Planets are predictable. Reapers aren't. They moved the Zah'til to this universe.”

“The Borg,” said Picard, softly. That's why he knew the name. “They abandoned the name over time, as they started bringing more species into their collective. It wasn't just the Zah and the Til anymore, so they called themselves Borg...”

“And they've been in contact with their old master,” Liara said. “They made contact with Harbinger across the universes, maybe even across time, and he told them of the Normandy. From what we've seen here, I imagine they managed to open a gateway of their own and bring Harbinger through, and assimilate it. Reapers are a collection, AI, and the people and cultures they took to build themselves. But the Borg have evolved beyond Reaper slaves, and have enough numbers of their own to counter the vastness of a Reaper. It appears as though their identities... merged.”

Picard nodded slightly. He knew little of the Reapers, but from what he had heard from Shepard and her crew...

“How do you know this?” he asked. “How did you know they'd strike here?”

“Ah... well...” said Liara. “I'm... not just an archaeologist. I'm... what they call an information broker. … I'm the information broker, really. When Legion told me about the zah'til, it was easy enough to suppose they might now be the Borg, given the similarities. … A look through the Romulan central computer, actually just through Donatra's logs, made it clear the Reapers were at play. We knew someone had foreknowledge of what was going to happen to the Normandy. From the description in Donatra's logs... it was obviously an indoctrinated superior. I took that as tentative evidence for my hypothesis.”

Shepard frowned slightly. “Still a bit of a leap to make...”

Liara nodded. “I was right though. Besides, it fit the pattern. Before the reapers made a move to destroy us, they sparked off the Rachni war. Had the Salarians not uplifted the Krogan, what was left of our species would have been easy pickings for the reapers. We'd have been too weak to offer up any sort of resistance. As it is, we're still feeling the after effects of both the Rachni war and the Krogan rebellion. They were moving to do the same thing here. Spark off a war between the Federation and the Romulans. Weaken everyone before they attacked. We also know from Vigil that the Reapers need records on the species they destroy, so they can find every last distant colony. There's no Citadel here, but with all the admirals gathering together... it was the perfect time to make a move. I imagine they had planned to simply indoctrinate everyone. When that failed...”

“They decided they'd get that knowledge through assimilation instead,” Janeway said. “As well as all of our tactical specifications. What I don't understand is how they adapted so quickly to your weapon.”

“Simple,” Liara said. “They didn't. They didn't have to work out a counter. That was Geth shield technology, taken from Harbinger no doubt. Disruptor ammunition still brings down shields from our universe quickly, but it won't cut straight through them like it probably would your force fields. And your shields aren't made to block kinetic weapons at all. Ours are.”

“All right,” said Picard. “We have work to do then. We need to gather up all of these... Reaper artifact and have them destroyed. Alert both the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire to the threat, so we can have a united force. Circulate an image of the artifacts so anyone with one in their possession can destroy it. If they're too far gone for that... well someone else may have seen them with it and be able to alert the authorities as to the possible... indoctrination, you call it?”

“Seems like a sensible plan,” Shepard said, taking her guns back from Picard. “Where'd you learn to shoot a real gun like that anyway?”

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Picard could not help but feel a tad sheepish. “Dixon Hill, actually.”

“Huh. I'll have to go there sometime.”

Miranda

Reapers again. Miranda knew they hadn't turned them back for good, but she had been hoping for at least a little bit of a rest. And it was Harbinger again.

Miranda had little basis for comparison. For all she knew, Harbinger was the most pathetic of all reapers. But he certainly was annoying. Sovereign, going by Shepard's reports, Sovereign at least would shut up on occasion. 

“Miss Lawson. May I join you?”

Miranda looked up from her coffee. There were plenty of tables open still in the starbase lounge, but she got the feeling this woman was after something more than a place to sit. Her uniform was crisp, even by Starfleet standards, every hair was put into place just so and she wore the pins that Miranda had learned signified a rank of Vice Admiral. Miranda didn't recognize her from the descriptions of the kidnapped admirals.

“By all means, Admiral Janeway.”

The woman smiled as she took the seat across from Miranda. “Someone showed you my picture?”

“No.”

“Good old deductive reasoning then. Well that makes me all the more confident in my decision.” Janeway looked up at a passing waiter. “Coffee. Black. And I do mean black.”

“What decision would this be?”

“Given the sudden disappearance of several admirals here, though by no means all of Starfleet's admirals, and my knowledge of the Borg, I've been put in charge of assembling an armada to defend the Federation.”

“I fail to see how this involves me.”

“The U.S.S. Nautilus was about to be decommissioned, but we need every ship we can get.”

“Good on you.”

“But that gives us more ships than captains. I know, I know, you'd like me to get to the point. You were Shepard's XO?”

Miranda laughed. “You aren't seriously suggesting...?”

“Like I said, we were going to decommission her. So even if you put some dents in it, it's not really a loss. Obviously we'd prefer the crew return intact, but... well this is the Borg. Worse than the Borg. You won't be the most inexperienced commander out there, but we have to take some risks if we're going to beat this thing.”

“Do you have any idea what Cerberus is?”

Janeway accepted her cup of coffee from the waiter and waved a hand dismissively as she took a sip. “I don't really care. Half my old crew were former resistance fighters if you're being nice, terrorists if you're being not-nice. And I'm sorry, but I'll need an answer from you before I finish this cup of coffee. I have a lot to do today. If you don't want her, then she's Commander Riker's. I don't feel like now is the time to shake up the crew of the flagship like that though, so I'm offering it to you first.”

Miranda considered this. For about a half a minute.

“Sure, what the hell, why not?”

Janeway nodded and placed four rank pips on the table between them, as well as a pad. “Congratulation, Acting Captain Lawson. There's the schematics on your first command. Study her as well as you can. She's on her way.”

With that, Janeway chugged the rest of her coffee, which was still almost the entire cup, and left.

Miranda picked up the pad and looked over her new, and rather unexpected ship. U.S.S. Nautilus NCC-31910, Miranda Class.

“Cute.”

Shepard

“You know, I'm not actually certain how to destroy Reaper artifacts.”

Tali picked one up gingerly. “I'd use the transporter. Just... beam them into space. But don't put them back together again.”

“You think that'll be enough?”

“I don't think you can destroy anything much more than reducing it to individual atoms.”

Shepard raised her eyebrows at that. “That's what the transporters do? Christ...”

“I think I mentioned before how the technology here was clearly designed by crazy people? … I'll still take it over the Mako though. … Or the Hammerhead.”

“It's not that bad!”

“You've never lost your lunch while living in a sealed suit.”

“Don't you have a tube for that or something?”

“Not the point, Shepard.”

The door slid open and Admiral Janeway walked in. Shepard was a little surprised. It looked as though Janeway's first priority after being attacked by the Borg had been to iron her uniform to perfect crispness. Admiralty seemed to suit her.

“Commander Shepard. I presume Captain Picard is busy?”

“I believe he and Commander Donatra are trying to get through to the Romulans.”

Janeway nodded. “Good. I don't want to have to debate this with him. I don't think he'll object too heavily, considering, but it's easier this way.” Janeway turned to Tali. “I'm sorry, I don't think we've been introduced.”

“Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Pleased to meet you, Admiral.”

“Normandy?”

“My people don't have a homeworld anymore. Not one that we can live on anyway. We live on ships. It forms part of our names. When I was young, I was Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. It means Tali Zorah, born on the Rayya, in your language. Vas Normandy means “Crew of the Normandy.”

“The Normandy isn't a ship of your people though, is it?”

Tali shook her head. “No, Admiral. The precise reasons for the change are... complicated. There were some legal issues. I could probably have it changed back to vas Neema, if I really wanted but...” Tali hesitated. She'd not said this out loud, though she was sure Shepard already knew. “This is my family now. Shepard and the Normandy crew. I'll always love my people, and I plan to go back... but in my heart, I'll always be vas Normandy.”

Janeway nodded. “Then maybe you should have some say in this as well. With your permission, Commander, I'd like the Normandy retrofitted to be warp capable immediately. Obviously our engineers will have to work together on this, but if we have to fight this... assimilated Reaper, I want your ship in there with the rest of us.”

“What about your Prime Directive?” said Shepard.

“Already shattered into a million pieces,” said Janeway. “And this is a crisis. You've got FTL, you've met aliens before, as far as I'm concerned, any part of the Prime Directive we haven't already broken can go shove itself. And so can the Romulan treaty. I want a cloaking device in that ship as well.”

Shepard glanced over at Tali. She knew Tali wasn't entirely comfortable with warp cores, and the Normandy's engine really was somewhat personal to her. Tali, however, was bouncing in excitement.

“Better FTL? Better stealth technology?!”

Shepard grinned. “I think that's a vote of approval from our engineer. I don't have a problem with it, but I need to run it by EDI.”

“Eedey?” Janeway asked.

“The ship's computer. … She's alive, I figure she gets a say.”

Janeway nodded slightly. “Just be as quick as you can. I want everything as ready to go as possible. You should know, your XO already accepted a command. You'll have to discuss with her what crewmembers will be joining her on the Nautilus.”

And with that, Janeway left.

“... She certainly is a busy woman, isn't she?” Tali said. “Small wonder she was late, if she was this busy... wherever she was before she came here.”

Shepard nodded slightly. “... Miranda has a ship. I don't know how to feel about that...”

“Could be worse... they could have given Jack a ship... her first command would probably have been to ram something...”

Liara

“Why do I make you sad?”

Liara jumped in surprise. She hadn't noticed Counselor Troi approaching, she'd been so burred in research. That voice, so suddenly... 

“You're sad around me,” Troi said. “I was curious. If you don't want to talk about it, that's all right.”

“Really?” Liara said. “I'm told you chased Jack across the Enterprise...”

“I suppose, as Jack isn't my patient, I can talk about it a little,” Troi said. “I know full well that Jack won't accept my help, and probably never will. But Jack is also used to people giving up on her. She expects me to give up on her as a hopeless case. So, every now and again, I make it clear I still believe she can be helped. Much as she acts like she hates it, she finds it gratifying.”

“I see,” Liara said. “It's... nothing personal with you. You just... sound like someone I knew. I suppose it's only natural. Sometimes you run across someone who looks just like someone else. Across two universes, there's bound to be two people who sound the same.”

“I understand,” Troi said. “Someone you lost then.”

“My mother,” Liara said. “I... whenever I hear you talk, I'm tempted to ask you to say something, so I can close my eyes and pretend it's her. I know better though. There is just a lot that I would have liked to hear her say. We did not always get along.”

“Well I'm sure she'd be very proud if she could see you now,” Troi said. 

Liara wasn't sure. The Shadow Broker, a member of Shepard's team, and still, when she could squeeze it in, an archeological researcher. They were accomplishments, yes, but not the life her mother ever had pictured for her. 

“Oh, I know that feeling,” Troi said. “Believe me. She'd be proud. Even if she might have trouble saying it.”

“Maybe,” Liara said. “But she isn't here to be proud either way.”

Troi nodded. “I suppose the lesson is to get close to people while you have the time. You never know what might happen.”

Liara nodded slightly. She wasn’t sure if there was anyone else she needed to make up to. Benezia was gone. She and Shepard were mending fences. Everyone else she knew wasn’t someone who was close to her, or should be close to her. 

… There was just one person she didn’t know. 

“Excuse me,” Liara said. “There’s… something I need to do.”

Liara moved back to her quarters on the Enterprise. There was a lot of work that was going to have to be done to prepare for the Borg, but she had a little time left before she was going to have to go overtime on her Shadow Broker duties. 

She sat down in front of her terminal and patched a call through to Illium, the signal passing through the breach between the universes and connecting to the nearest extranet hub to get her access on the normal channels. 

“Hello?” An Asari with a slightly raspy voice popped up on the screen. “… Do I know you?”

“I know full well that you do, dad.” Liara said. “We… should talk.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabby and Ken's scene is stolen pretty shamelessly from Mass Effect 3 in this chapter. Hopefully you'll forgive my originality there.

Miranda

It was rare to see the entire Normandy crew in the conference room. In fact, with the addition of Ken and Gabby, and Liara, it was more people than had ever been there. Nothing Miranda couldn't handle, of course, it was just a bit odd to see them all together, especially lately, with everyone moving between ships and starbases.

“All right, everyone,” Miranda said. “Here's the deal. Starfleet in their infinite wisdom and, presumably, desperation, has decided to give me a command to help fight off the Reapers. It's an old ship, set to be decommissioned before this, but it's a good one. The design has lasted almost seventy years, that should tell you something. She's a veteran of the Dominion War as well, so I don't want anyone thinking they gave me a lemon. It's a fine ship.”

In all honestly, Miranda had no clue what the hell the Dominion War was, but got the idea that a lot of very good ships had been lost in it, so the survival of this ship, presumably, meant something.

“The crew, however,” Miranda continued. “Is less than stellar. It seems this is a good time for promotion. Higher ranking Starfleet officers are also getting their first commands, and, for obvious reasons, the captain who isn't a member of Starfleet got last pick in terms of crew. By which I mean, the Nautilus has a skeleton crew comprised of only those crewmembers that literally no one else wanted.”

“Have fun blowin' up!” said Jack. “I'm sure I'll be sad about it one day, when I realise how much I miss hating you.”

Miranda ignored her. “As a result, in spite of the fact that none of you have any experience on a Starfleet vessel... well the fact that you have experience on any vessel at all makes you more qualified than the rest of my crew. Shepard's provided me with a list of what personnel must remain on the Normandy. Tali, Donnelly, Daniels, you're obviously essential to the hybrid engine the Normandy is going to have. Garrus, the Normandy's weapons are your baby, it'd be a disservice to take you away from them, both to you and the ship. Joker--”

“Yeah, I'd mutiny before I left the Normandy.”

“Exactly. Ditto Jack.”

“Mutiny is too tame a word for what I'd do if someone tried to put me on a ship with you in charge, Barbie.”

“And, for obvious reasons, EDI will also be staying on the Normandy. In light of that, Jacob--”

“Security chief?”

“Last time you were security chief, everyone got killed. By our own security droids. But we've been together a long time. You know me, you know what I like--”

Jack snickered.

“So you'll be first officer. Congratulations, Acting Commander Taylor.” Miranda handed him a pad. “Here's the ship's specs, department heads, such as they are, crew manifest, etc. Basically, you have until the ship gets here to learn everything about it and its crew.”

“Aye, captain.”

Miranda let the slight smirk he gave as he called her by rank fly.

“Samara, you ever fired a ship's weapons before?”

“I have lived a long time, and done many things. This is a thing I have done many times.”

“Fantastic,” Miranda handed her a pad as well. “You're our new tactical officer. These are the Nautilus's weapon capabilities, as well as a brief summary of Starfleet combat tactics. I'm going to want you to start logging hours in battle simulations as well. You should be able to pull up the Nautilus bridge in the holodeck to practice on. Zaeed--”

“Oh no you don't,” Zaeed said. “I'm a goddamn mercenary, not some prissy officer.”

“You're head of security.”

“You want me to stand around and make sure the world's greenest crew doesn't... what, walk around without a hall pass? Find someone else.”

“I want you to make sure that, if we get boarded, or things turn into a ground fight, my bunch of green, terrified security personnel are more afraid of what you'll do to them if they run away, then what the invaders will do if they press on.” 

“... Yeah, I guess, I can do that. How far can I go?”

“Don't injure them. … Don't injure them enough to put them in medbay. Feel free to scare the shit out of them. That story you tell involving the krogan head plate and the claw hammer, for example, should do fine.”

“Heh. Yeah, that's a good one...”

“Mordin--”

“Chief medical officer, yes? Natural position. Best to have Chakwas stay on Normandy. More experience with crew. Still want better doctor for Nautilus, especially if headed into combat.”

Mordin nabbed her last pad.

“Presumably want me to study pad, learn crew, brush up on Starfleet medical practices, human biology, layout of sickbay, interactions with nurses. Can make good use of the holodeck.”

Miranda sighed slightly. “Yes, Mordin, that would be nice. Now, I want everyone familiar with their positions ASAP. I want us to all run the Kobiashi Maru simulation together before the Nautilius gets here.” 

Tali

The Normandy was such a pretty ship. When Tali had been a girl, she'd dreamed of ships like it. She loved her home, she loved her ship, but she still wanted to see a ship that had been designed instead of cobbled together. One that wasn't pulling a payload of cargo containers behind it, full of overcrowded people. She'd always wanted to at least experience a ship that was designed a little bit sleeker, a little bit sexier. And then she grew up, met Shepard, went on the Normandy... there wasn't a ship in the universe, either universe, that was better than the Normandy, either Normandy.

“Tali?”

Tali didn't hear him at first.

“Tali, what are you looking at-- Oh...”

Geordi put a hand on her shoulder, looking out the Starbase window at where swarms of Federation shipworkers, clad in space suits, cut into the hull of Normandy's engineering section.

“Hey... come on, let's go somewhere else. You don't wanna watch this.”

“Yeah...” said Tali. “Yeah, you're right...”

She didn't move.

“Come on. She'll be okay. They'll put her back together just fine. Probably use tritanium to patch her up. She'll be stronger than ever.”

Tali nodded and turned away from the window, fighting the urge to turn back and make sure they weren't going to damage her ship.

“When I was a kid, I used to have a stuffed pyjack,” she said.

“A what?”

“You don't have those here?”

“Not that I've ever heard of.”

“Oh. … Call it a space monkey then.”

Geordi laughed. “Okay, sure. Space monkey. Tell me about it.”

“It's nothing it's just... Well you know how kids are. You get really attached to a blanket, or a stuffed animal, or... you know, something.”

“Sure, I know. I used to have a stuffed lion. Carried it around with me everywhere I went.”

“I haven't felt like this since my mother used to take it and put it in the wash...”

Geordi lead her off, an arm around her waist. “Lemme guess, you stood there and watched it through the whole wash cycle until you could hold it again.”

“Actually, I couldn't leave my bubble, so I wasn't able to stand there and watch it. … I hacked a security feed and watched it. I couldn't have been older than four...”

“Wait, you were in a bubble?”

Tali sighed and put a hand to her faceplate. “Yes! We raise our children in bubbles so they don't die! Why does everyone else think that's so weird?”

“Just sounds like a hard way to grow up is all.”

“I suppose it was,” said Tali. “But I never saw it that way. It was just... normal. Not having any privacy was normal, living in tiny spaces was normal... It was just how it was. And it's not as bad as it sounds. You could disconnect the bubble from everything and run around in it, like Shepard lets her hamster do sometimes. Doors were tricky, but I never felt trapped. It was actually better than the suit in a lot of ways, because it takes up more space so the crowds couldn't get so close.”

“Maybe we could get you another bubble.”

Tali laughed. “Don't be silly! I'd look like an idiot! A fully grown woman hanging out in a bubble!”

“Okay,” Geordi admitted. “So maybe it'd look a little childish, but not to any race here. And there aren't any other quarians around to see you.”

“And there also aren't any clothes for me to wear,” Tali said, poking his chest gently. “Don't think I can't sense your intentions, LaForge...”

“It was the farthest thing from my mind.”

“Was?”

“Well if you're going to bring it up, you've really no one to blame but yourself...”

Tali shoved him gently. “Come on. Once they finish the external modifications, we're going to have to install an entire engine, let's find something to do while we still free time.”

“Exactly,” said Geordi. “I'm game for anything.”

Tali thought for a moment, and then her eyes lit up. “Liara has extranet!”

“Yeah?”

“I say we invade her quarters and watch _Fleet and Flotilla_ with it.”

“Oookay... why not? A good movie sounds nice.”

Tali started to pull him towards the Enterprise. “Then the galaxy's best movie should be ever better!”

Picard

“Captain Picard, I presume.”

Picard turned around and took an instinctive step backward at the sight of a Borg implant before he realized who he was talking to.

“Ah! Miss, uh... Nine. Good to finally meet you.”

“Formal titles are not required, nor would they appear to be advisable. Where may I find Acting Captain Lawson?”

“I'm afraid I couldn't say. Have you tried the computer?”

“The computer claimed her to be in her Enterprise quarters. I found no one there.”

Picard nodded slightly. “She must have taken off her combadge. I imagine she's likely in a holodeck then, and wanted to avoid the interruption.”

“I see.”

And with that, Seven of Nine walked off.

“Sorry about that.,” said Janeway, poking her head in. “I wanted to warn you, but we've both been tied up all day.”

“It's all right,” said Picard. “She's no more Borg than I am.”

Janeway smiled softly. “That's nice of you to say, Jean-Luc, but she's a lot more Borg than you are, and you know it.”

“She isn't one of them any longer.”

“She's not one of us either,” said Janeway. “You know I care for her. I don't say it as an insult, I say it as the truth. It took me a long time to realize, but pretending she's human, just like you or me isn't doing her a kindness. It's better to see her for what she is and accept that.”

“She may become human in time.”

“Maybe,” Janeway nodded. “I have no doubt she's not finished working out who she is yet. There are certainly human traits she wants to work towards. Will she ever be human again? It could happen. But Jean-Luc... she's not you. You were Locutus for a day. She's been Seven of Nine for more of her life than she's been Annika Hansen. She grew up with it. It's her childhood. Her adolescence. Those are times that shape you. I don't see this going away.”

Picard sighed and fetched a cup of tea from the replicator. “I suppose you know her better. I imagine she's here as another Borg expert?”

“More than that,” said Janeway. “She's thinking of joining Starfleet. She wants to serve on the Nautilus to see how it feels. It's already going to be full of non-officers in command rolls, so, assuming any of us live, it's a good middle ground.”

“We'll have to work out what to call her.”

Janeway laughed slightly. “Ensign Nine? Best not to say it in front of her, or she'll opt not to join.”

Picard smiled and sipped at his tea. “So we're outfitting alien ships with our technology now?”

“Yes we are. Do you disagree?”

“In all honesty, no. I've always looked more on the Prime Directive as being to avoid cultural contamination. It's not a worry here. Outfitting other races with our technology... We're not supposed to do it, we're supposed to let even advanced races develop along their own lines. It's risky, but it's not on the level with breaking the Prime Directive.”

“Which you've done a couple times, if I recall.”

“In extreme circumstances. And what is this if not extreme circumstances? … It may seem self serving but I've always had a fondness for humanity as a species.”

“Yes, though from what I hear, Shepard's old employer makes you look tame.”

“In all honesty, what makes us different from the other hundreds of races the Borg have assimilated? Or the races the Reapers slaughtered? What is it humanity has that's going to give us even a fighting chance?”

“If we're being honest, then I suppose nothing at all. Don't tell the others I said that though. But by all rights, I shouldn't be here talking to you. I should be half a galaxy away. Hell, we should both be dead by the Borg already. It's a big universe, and it's looking bigger than we thought. Sometimes good things happen. Sometimes, just by chance, the good guys win. Even when there's no good reason. If all you have on your side is dumb luck... well even the unlikely happens once in a while.”

Picard nodded slightly. “We'll do what we have to do. What we always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live.”

“Shakespeare?”

“'Bones' McCoy. Paraphrased slightly.”

Shepard

“Before you leave the Normandy, I have a set of requests for you.”

Jacob looked at the pad Shepard handed him and nodded. “Shouldn't be a problem. … You think it'll help?”

“Can't hurt,” Shepard said. “Dismissed.”

Shepard watched Jacob walk off, not sure how she felt about having so many members of her crew leave. She was lead to understand that this would likely be a space based battle though, where most would have little to do on the Normandy. Even she hated those. The Normandy wasn't like the Enterprise. Combat was too fast for her to issue commands. All she could do was hang tight and rely on her pilot. She loved the Normandy, but she didn't command it the way Picard commanded his ship. The Normandy was her shelter, where the people she cared about lived, her home, but she didn't command it outside of telling it where to go. Her place in combat was on the ground, with a rifle in her hands. She wasn't looking forward to it.

“I knew the calm wouldn't last,” Liara said. Shepard hadn't heard her approach, but she wasn't surprised she was there. When they weren't trying to be stealthy, Asari had a feel to them. Part of their low-level telepathy, Shepard assumed. It wasn't something she normally noticed, it was subtle. Shepard was reminded of an old ship she lived on. The air seemed normal there. She moved, as she always did, and the air still seemed normal. One day a package arrived from the old ship, something she'd left behind. When she opened the box, it smelled like her old ship. She'd never known it had a smell until that moment, but the sudden contrast made it unmistakable. 

That's how Asari were, but not with smell. A room with an Asari just... felt different. They all felt unique. But the feeling was almost impossible to notice unless you were looking out for it. She'd have recognized the feeling Liara carried with her anywhere, and she was convinced some part of her had noticed it, even if her conscious mind hadn't been alerted. 

“I just... I hoped we'd have more time,” Liara said. “Everything you have on your mind... it shows on your face you know.”

“This is just how my face is.”

“No it isn't,” Liara said. “I can see why you think that. When was the last time you saw your face when you weren't burdened with Reapers, and upcoming trials, deaths that couldn't have been helped, but you can't stop wondering about?”

“When was the last time you did?” Shepard said. “I was already hunting Saren when we met. Then I was dead for two years... it hasn't really let up since.”

“I saw it the other night,” Liara said. “Every now and again, I can make you forget about everything else, if just for a few moments. I like the way your face looks then. I'd like to see it more.”

“Well, now you're just being a sweet talker,” Shepard said. 

“I don't think I have the genetics for sweet talk,” Liara said. “I... just had a talk with my father.”

“You know who she is?” Shepard said. “... Of course you do. Who? … Probably no one I've heard of, actually...”

“Matriarch Atheyta, actually. You have met. I'm not sure you remember--” 

Shepard felt a little bit bad about laughing, but she found she couldn't quite help herself. Surely Liara had been kidding?

“There was a video you had access to, of her looking at my picture...” Liara said.

“I just watched the one of Al Jilani getting punched over and over,” Shepard said. “I saw the Nerve-Stim thing in Tali's file, and I was a little afraid of what might be on your video feeds.”

“I will have you know, I had nothing to do with that,” Liara said. “That was the previous broker. I respect my friend's privacy. … Sort of. … At least in _that_ area. I do not need to know about that.” 

“So you're serious?” Shepard said. “... She once implied the only reason she wouldn't have sex with me right there on the bar was because she'd just cleaned it. I mean, I know she was kidding, but--” 

“No, she wasn't. I've seen her arrest records. She managed to successfully argue on many cases that a rather... personal meld didn't count as indecent exposure because neither party was disrobed or touching.”

“That's your dad.” Shepard still couldn't believe it. 

“Yes. She gave me some advice about you that... does not need repeating. The words 'ride her like a varren in heat' were, however, involved.”

Shepard pulled a face. She didn't mind the crassness, but the mental image was offputting to say the least.

“I... assuming we live, we do not have to visit her together or anything.”

“Are you kidding?” Shepard said. “Your dad is amazing. … This complicates things, now if I ask you to marry me, you're going to be wondering if it's just so I can say she's my dad too...” 

Liara shoved Shepard slightly. “At least now I know why mother never told me. I imagine she would have had a very hard time explaining how that relationship was born while keeping her dignity intact...”

“Yeah... especially hard if Atheyta had been in the room too. No one's getting out of a room with her and keeping their dignity intact...”

“Goddess, don't say that in front of her. She'll make it her motto...”

Gabby

“Hey Gabby, have you--”

“Yes, I've seen the Borg lady. Yes, she wears tight clothes and has massive tits. No, I don't think the Borg implant process involves the silicone kind of implant. Now was there anything else?”

Ken snorted. “I didn't even think of the silicone thing...”

“Aren't you supposed to be learning how the plasma conduits they're installing in the Normandy work?”

“I'm doing it, I'm doing it! I was just thinking, it's going to be something awful for the poor Nautilus bridge crew.”

“What do you mean?” Gabby asked, in spite of knowing she wouldn't be happy with the answer.

“You've seen their bridge layouts, right? Imagine you're the helmsman and you swivel your chair to look behind you. It'd just be... well they'd die happy...”

“What would be amazing?” He meant tits. Gabby had no idea why she asked, she _knew_ the answer was tits.

“Miranda, Samara, Seven of Nine... Samara's an Asari too, so even if you're not into women it won't save you...”

“I don't think gay men, or straight women, care about breasts, Kenneth.”

 

“They like Asari, don't they? I mean, everyone likes Asari.”

“I don't. But even when people like Asari more than other women, that doesn't mean they like the things you like about Asari. Lots of Turians and other non-mammal races find their breasts weird.”

“That's criminal that is. Such magnificent things, and to let them go unappreciated...”

“I'm sure your 'appreciation' alone outweighs all the non-mammalian species that couldn't couldn't care less.”

“Just doing my duty.”

“Hardly.”

“Name one set I've let slip by me.”

“Me.”

“Gabby, we're co-workers.”

“So are half the people you won't stop making stupid sexist jokes about.”

“Yeah, but I don't work with them. If I did... look, it's not that I don't value them as people. But, as they're not around I can... say what's on my mind.”

“You made remarks about Tali when she was standing right over there!”

“Yeah, okay, but... you know, Tali and I have an understanding, she knows I don't mean it. I mean, I do, but she knows I still... you know, value her as a person. Quarian. Whatever. I just... also value her hips. Not as much as her as, you know, a whole... sapient being, thing.”

“Kenneth,” Gabby said a little sharply. “I know you don't see me as a sex object. We have an understanding! So?”

“... Well it's not that I don't appreciate your breasts but...”

Gabby glared. “But what, Kenneth? I'm running out of patience for your bullshit excuses.”

“Its your legs that really stand out. They are something else. I think you could out leg EDI. And that's saying something.”

Gabby was not entirely sure how to respond to that.

“You know I'm still going to comment on other women, right? Like, all of them?”

“You know I'm still going to groan about it.”

“No fun if you don't. Wouldn't have it any other way.”

Gabby didn't want to admit it, but... “Ditto. It'd be a shame if you started acting like an actual human being.”

“So, this groaning you mentioned... when exactly do I get to start making you groan?”

“Annnd I've created a monster.”

“Nah, just enabled.”


	12. Chapter 12

Miranda

“Acting Captain Lawson?”

Miranda turned around to see a woman with a dress since that wasn't dramatically different from her own, and with what looked like a piece of Borg technology above her eyebrow.

“You know, I'm okay with people just calling me Captain Lawson.”

“Seven of Nine.” The woman handed her a pad. “Submitting a formal civilian request to join the Nautilus as chief science adviser and Borg expert.”

Miranda glanced down at the pad. “You served on Voyager, under Janeway?”

“Correct.”

Miranda nodded. “It says here you're a skilled multitasker, and good at keeping a level head under pressure. You're at ops. Be prepared to run training sims.”

“You misunderstand. I'm applying for the position of science officer.”

Miranda shook her head. “I understand perfectly. You're the new Nautilus science officer.” She scrawled a signature on the pad and handed it back. “And, on the bridge, you will serve at ops. Your scientific and Borg related expertise will be useful on the bridge, I doubt you'll be running studies in the middle of combat, so you can give me that advice while you manage ops. You have experience. That's something I can't afford to waste on my ship.”

“I see. Very good, Captain.”

“Now, why don't you go introduce yourself to the rest of the bridge crew? And Mordin. You may need to work closely with him.”

Seven hesitated visibly. “I'm sure I can get to know them well enough in the simulator, Captain.”

Miranda actually found she wanted to agree. It's what she would have asked for, in Seven of Nine's place. At the very least, it's what she would have wanted to do. Know the others as professionals. Never interact with them as people. Be cold, be tough, never let anyone close enough to hurt you. It wasn't hard to see that was how Seven of Nine had managed to get around so far.

Much as it galled her to admit it about anyone, Seven of Nine had suffered more than Miranda had. Still, Miranda couldn't help but see herself in the woman. Molded from when she was a child to meet someone else's idea of perfection. Breaking free, only to still be trapped by that, to have so many advantages, but to know the whole time it's because you're perfect... but perfection as imagined by someone evil. Wondering if every good thing she did only serves to justify that evil, to make him, them, whatever, right in retrospect for doing what they had done. Then there was that feeling, wondering what it said about her if she enjoyed being a madman's vision of perfection.

Miranda, of course, didn't say any of this. She'd let Seven keep her armor, let her keep thinking no one understood. She would not, however, let Seven make the same bad choices that she had made... and probably would still make.

“No. We need to know each other beyond what's on these pads. Our lives may depend on it. When I served on the Normandy, if Shepard hadn't talked to all of us, hadn't learned who we were beyond what our dossiers said, there's a good chance one of us would have died fighting the Collectors. One person in the wrong place, doing the wrong job, and they could die. Believe me, I don't like spending personal time with people any more than you do, but it needs to be done. I'm not asking you to have tea with them. Just go meet them.”

Seven of Nine glared slightly, but nodded. “Aye, Captain,” she said, a little formally, even by what seemed to be her normal standards of speaking. It was matched by her somewhat overperfect turn and she left. Just aloof enough Miranda knew she was hiding fear and dread behind her irritation and formality.

Once Miranda was sure she was out of earshot, she muttered a small apology under her breath. It was for her own good, miserable as it might be now.

As Miranda headed to study the files on her new ship in further detail, she couldn't help but reflect, in spite a small amount of guilt how much Seven clearly hated her orders, she really liked being called captain...

Shepard

Shepard laughed slightly as she walked into Picard's ready room.

“I suppose this is what Q meant about us being obsessed with fish...” she said, resisting the childish urge to point out that her fishtank was bigger. It was easier to resist when she remembered her fishtank was paid for by a morally bankrupt organization, with money obtained from god knows what.

“His name's Livingston,” Picard said.

“Doctor Livingston, I presume?”

Picard laughed slightly. “It would also seem we share a fondness for models. Part of why I asked you here, actually. This one here is the Reliant. Same class as your XO will be commanding.”

“It's a little squat, but I have every confidence in Miranda.”

“Admiral Janeway's proposed strategy would put her at direct risk of harm. In the event that a Borg cube should attack... her proposed plan is to have the fleet bombard the cube, while shielding a cloaked Normandy from harm. Once the cube's hull is damaged enough, she'd have the Normandy decloak and fire your... unique cannons. She doesn't believe the Borg will have any defense against it, and, if damaged enough, the first blast would hopefully destroy enough of the drones to leave the ship crippled and unable to regenerate.”

“Meaning Miranda, and the rest of the fleet, would be throwing themselves in front of the Borg to save my ship. It's not my idea of fun, but it's not a situation that's new to me.”

Picard nodded slightly. “That's assuming they send a cube. What's your recommendation against a reaper?”

“Shoot it. A lot.” Shepard shrugged slightly. “Not helpful, I know. We've only ever fought one. We know of no special weakness. We haven't been able to study it given the risk of indoctrination. But the one we did fight crumbled under sufficient, and not insignificant, firepower. That... might have been because I distracted it by killing the husk of a former Spectre it was controlling at the time though.”

“This one won't crumble under simple firepower.”

Q, it seemed, had developed something of a penchant for appearing in ready rooms. There was no flash of light to signify his arrival, however. He was simply leaning against the fish tank, where before there had been no one.

“Unless you have something important to add, Q,” said Picard. “We are rather busy. This is not the time for your--”

“Oh, spare me, Picard. You never understood the purpose of our little 'games' and it's starting to become clear you never will, not without help.”

Shepard folded her arms. “Tell you what, why don't you get rid of our little problem, and we can talk all day, Q.”

“Nothing would delight me more. But I can't.”

“Weren't you tossing around the world omnipotent? I was under the impression that meant you could do anything.”

“Oh, but I can, Commander. The question is, what happens when someone else omnipotent reverses everything you do? Omnipotence is just the best word for something you don't have a concept for.”

“The other Q are preventing you from helping us, is that it?” said Picard. “Not that I honestly expect it of you.”

“Oh no, Picard. Little as we care about... well you, and your species, the rest of the continuum would just as deeply love to end this confrontation. It's Them. Not the Borg, not the Reapers, but what they will become. We vanish their cubes, their platforms, they pull in new ones from other universes. We go back in time to stop them from having that ability, they go back and put it right again. It all starts here, Jean-Luc. I've been trying to prepare you to understand this.”

“You mean that the Borg, with the help of the Reapers, have become powerful enough to cross between universes at will? Alter history? Rival your power?”

“Yes and no. They will after today, after crushing you. They'll set their sights higher. From your perspective, it hasn't happened yet. For us, we've been fighting them for eternity. One massive, multiversal, infinite collective of Borg from every universe, assimilating everything, including every Reaper, from every universe. They can't touch us, but we can't get at them either, and they're turning the multiverse into a very bland place. It's boring enough without them making it so... homogenous.”

“Surely the capability to move between universes isn't that powerful,” said Picard. “We were only a few years off--”

“And would have been just a few years off for eternity,” said Q. “You said it yourself once, said we were worried you might rival us, so we blocked you from having it. I vouched for your species, actually. I said we needed someone on our side. Give the power of the multiverse to the Romulans, they'd turn all their losses into wins with no regard for the damage they might do. The Cardassians would probably break reality, trying to make the contradictions they feed their population into reality. The Federation, though, what would they do with that power? Sit on their thumbs and debate the ethics of it. I tried to show them. I made you pass a test, and that wasn't good enough. I gave Riker the power of the Q. And he gave it up. Which, they said, was humanity admitting themselves they weren't ready, so they overruled me. So I trained you. I showed you your enemy. Which irritated the rest of the Q enough to strip me of my powers, by the way. I tried to make you see that sacrifices might have to be made, but you were too stuborn to listen. I showed you what can happen if you change the past even with good intentions, to try and fix a mistake. I tried to expand your mind, just so you'd understand the nature of this threat. And here I am, explaining it anyway.”

Picard nodded slightly. “I think I do see. When you had my consciousness... jumping through time, I nearly destroyed half the galaxy because of a time paradox. And it's a paradox like that keeping you from stopping the Borg?”

“But you can stop them. They don't see either of you as a threat, not the Borg, not the Reapers. They've noticed you. They find the both of you irritating. But you're like a particularly stubborn rock on the beach. You survived the first few waves, but they know nothing can stand against the tide coming in. They don't really think you a threat.”

“So they won't time travel, or manipulate the multiverse to stop us from destroying their little experiment here?” Shepard asked, trying to follow the conversation. It wasn't exactly her field of expertise, but she'd gathered that, between Q, and other random spacial encounters, the Enterprise crew was quite familiar with this sort of thing.

“Point to the commander! And with no special training at all. Why you're almost not as dumb as you look. That's why I can't do more than talk to you. If they know I'm here, they'll intervene. Stop them here, and it's as if it never was. The Borg don't get the multiverse. The only Reaper they ever assimilated is destroyed. You can go back to your universe and keep up the fight against the Reapers. Jean-Luc can fight the Borg here, and the Q can finally relax.”

Shepard frowned. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

Picard appeared somewhat confused as well.

“I said no. That's not good enough.”

Q laughed. “What do you propose to do then, Fiona? Sit here, watch the world end? I'll get you some popcorn.”

“Sounds lovely. I hear Risa is quite nice. Like you said, pebbles on the shore before the tide. I have two options. I can either die on a topical beach, arm around an Asari, at as much peace as I can hope to be, or I can die painfully, at best, fighting your war. And I don't see a lot of reason to do the latter.”

Picard nodded slowly. “I am inclined to agree with Commander Shepard.”

“You wouldn't just sit back and watch your race end. I know you too well. You'd do anything to protect your little species. You'll never stop fighting.”

“I am fighting,” Shepard said. “I'm fighting you. And yes. I will do anything. I blew up an inhabitted system to fight the Reapers and I'd do it again in an instant. Do you really want to bet I won't stand back and let this place burn until you agree to help me?”

Q glared. “What would you ask of me then?”

“An end, once and for all. We win, you destroy every assimilated Borg and the Reapers. We lose... well we're all in trouble then, aren't we?”

Q was clearly not happy about this, but Shepard couldn't help but notice he wasn't saying no straight off. Which meant he knew he didn't have a choice.

“Fine. If you win, the Borg and the Reapers will never both you again. Destroyed forever. But that is payment for you aid in full. I won't help you with Cerberus, or the Romulans, or anything else. You're on your own, no matter how bad it gets.”

Picard nodded. “Deal.”

“Agreed,” Shepard said.

“As I have a stake in this, it's a cube and Harbinger headed your way. Since their plan to start a war failed, and they couldn't indoctrinate your upper command subtly, they're coming personally this time,” said Q. “Good luck.”

And with that, he was gone.

Tali

“Keelah, it's such a mess in here... have you seen the port-side intake tube? I know it's one of these...”

“I'm sure I saw it somewhere...” said Geordi. “I think it's the one that has the faint infrared glow.”

“Not helpful.”

The crawlspace area under the engines was a complete mess. And not just because Jack had been living there, and had a lax attitude towards cleaning.

“Well, it is two engines, plus a cloaking device, retrofitted into a space they were never supposed to be...”

“I know,” said Tali. “Feels a little bit like home. … Of course, we take a little more care to label all the wires and tubes back home so we can sort out the tangled mess to make repairs... I'll have to have another go and do that properly once we're not in such a rush.”

Geordi nodded. “I imagine any fight with the Borg, or reapers, or whatever we're calling this bunch is gonna make a mess out of the engine room anyway, so it'll need a cleanup.”

Tali nodded, finally managing to trace the tube she was holding back to the source and confirm that it was, in fact, the port-side intact tube. As she leaned over to plug it in, her foot caught in one of the other pieces of wiring strewn about the floor, sending her toppling over, into Geordi.

He made a valiant effort to catch her, and, given her rather negligible mass, he probably would have succeeded, if he'd have better footing. As it was, Tali just slammed into him, knocking the two of them over, and partway under one of the tables.

Tali could feel her face getting warm and was grateful again for her mask.

… Except Geordi could see in infrared...

“I... uh... sorry... I...”

Tali could feel her body pressing against Geordi. Even with the cramped conditions in the flotilla, she couldn't recall having been this close to another person since... ever, actually. She tried to stand up and found her back smacking into the shelf above her and pushing her right down into him again.

Tali winced and rolled away from him, feeling her entire body start to flush with a mixture of embarrassment, as well as flushing slightly for other reasons, which only added to her embarrassment.

“Right. Sorry, got... uh... got jammed by the table. Where'd that tube go?”

As Tali got back to work, she couldn't help but have how cramped the space under the engines was in her mind. Even at his farthest, she could almost feel his body heat, even through her suit.

Ultimately, Tali was starting to understand why they'd found Ken and Gabby down here, in the middle of a makeout session before they had to get to work. 

\----- 

It wasn't until much later that Tali was able to slip off on her own. She and Geordi had finally called it a night. In all honesty, Tali wanted nothing more than to go into her quarters, set up a hammock, flop into it, and sleep forever. But she had one stop she wanted to make first.

“I... uh... Doctor Crusher?” she said, poking her head through the sickbay doors.

“Tali. Come on in. I need a break from all this Borg stuff anyway.”

Tali nodded slightly, glancing down at one of the beds. “How's Admiral Henry?”

“Stable, but he'll be unconscious for a while. It was not a clean procedure.”

“I was told it was fairly easy for the captain...”

Crusher nodded. “It was. There have only been two people who have ever been completely or partially restored after assimilation. Seven of Nine, and Captain Picard. Both were assimilated before the Borg started using nanotechnology. Seven did have nanobots, but they weren’t used in her original assimilation. The first thing I tried to do with Admiral Henry was to release counter nanobots into his blood stream to destroy the Borg nanobots.”

“Sounds sensible...”

“The Borg nanobots assimilated them. They only made the condition worse. So I moved on to a complete blood transfusion. Halfway through the nanobots ate their way through the blood sack and started assimilating the machine. It nearly killed him. In addition to making quite a mess on the floor. Finally, I just had to hit him with an EMP, dangerous enough in itself, to shut down the things and finish the transfusion with a new machine. Then I had to destroy both the infected machines. He'll live, and probably make a full recovery, but that's a hell of a traumatic procedure. … But I'm sure you didn't come for him.”

“Ah... right... no...” Tali tried to keep herself still, but she just wasn't able to stop herself from shifting uncomfortably and fiddling with anything that came near her fingers. “I was wondering if... well... I've looked into my medical situation with regards to... personal... contact. But I didn't know if there was some way that maybe Federation medical science could... help?”

Crusher smiled softly. It was a look Tali was very familiar with. A small mixture of sympathy, pity, and trying to reassure her there was nothing to be embarrassed about. She also knew what it, inevitably meant.

“You're giving me The Look. I'm sorry I asked, if you had anything you would have told me about it, I know, it's... I thought I should just... it was a stupid--”

“Tali, relax...” Crusher put a hand on Tali's shoulder to stop her from walking out. “Medically there's not anything I can do yet. But, there are some interesting emergency surgery guidelines. Specifically, in the event an infectious patient needs surgery, and the medical bay is unable to provide facilities, a set of holodecks can double.”

“I'm... not sure I follow.”

“Given that a holodeck, when in use, is covered in non-physical material, forcefields and light, it's very easily made sterile. The doctor takes the second holodeck. The doctor interacts with a holographic representation of the patient, updated in real time, and the patient is treated by a real time, but holographic holographic doctor. Again, it's real time. It's physically indistinguishable from being in the same room with each other.”

“Oh.” Tali's eyes got big. “Oh! I... uh... I...”

“Cheers,” said Crusher, gently pushing Tali out. “Now go and get some sleep.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter is long. By the standards of this fic anyway. 
> 
> This chapter also contains a heavy amount of Kelly Chambers. I make some awful fun of her over her "I have a degree in psychology" comment and her other... not entirely undeserved reputation. Her scene here doesn't really downplay either of those, but I always wanted to justify her presence a little more. I guess it's my apology to the character for the fact that I'm probably not going to stop making jokes. Hopefully it seems in character. I found Kelly a little difficult, as she spends most of her time talking about alien crew members, and relatively little on herself, leaving her without as much development as some characters, like the later Specialist Traynor.

Miranda

“Lock all weapons on the vessel and prepare to fire.”

“Weapons locked, Captain.”

If it were anyone besides Samara at tactical, Miranda might have accused them of not taking the simulation seriously. As it was, Miranda imagined that Samara's stoicism would hold, even if the situation were real and the ship was actively breaking in half.

“Prepare medical bay for survivors. Helm, take us between the Kobiashi Maru and the Borg sphere. Engineering, prepare to vent warp plasma on my mark.”

Miranda kept a close eye on the attached to the hand rests of her chair. It was a nice chair. Comfortable. Something the Normandy CIC could certainly use, if it were possible. Once the indicator showed us they were just starting to pass the sphere she spoke up.

“Mark!”

“Warp plasma has not been deployed,” Seven of Nine reported. The ship shook violently. “The Borg are attempting to hold us in a tractor beam. Shields are holding for now.”

“Engineering, report!”

A very nervous sounding report came over the com from their chief engineer, Ensign Raely. “Sorry captain, I'm not familiar with these... uh...”

“We'll discuss it later.” Miranda found herself cradling her forehead with one hand. More accurately, Commander Taylor and him would be discussing it later, as was his job.

“The Kobiashi Maru has taken a direct hit from the Borg,” Seven reported. “Their shields are down.”

“Begin beaming the survivors on board. Samara, next time you see that tractor beam, fire.”

The ship rocked again.

“Firing,” said Samara, evenly.

“Shields are now at 75%. Borg sphere is undamaged.”

The ship shuddered. Miranda was sure she heard a slight creaking sound from some of the supports.

“Correction. Shields at 60%. Minor structural stress levels detected.”

Any other enemy and Miranda would have thought the computer was cheating to keep them from winning. The Admiral hadn't told her the purpose of the simulation, just recommended it as a training exercise. As it was, giving her a small Borg sphere felt like going easy. And she was still losing. 

If it was to be a test though, Miranda knew it wouldn't be a straight shooting match. It was a test of her ability to Captain a ship. There was something they wanted to see. Heroic sacrifice maybe. Or practical retreat. 

… To hell with that, she decided. They might not like it, but she knew what she'd advise Shepard to do if this were real. She didn't know if Shepard would do it or not. She imagined not. But this was her ship.

“Order the Kobiashi Maru to set a collision course for the sphere,” said Miranda. “Samara, put all the phaser power into the shields. Be ready to lock our aft torpedo tube onto the Maru drive section. Fire the rest at will.”

“I thought this was a rescue mission,” said Jacob. “Not assisted suicide.”

“When it was just a distress signal, it was. Now that we know it's the Borg, I'm changing our mission parameters. Seven, give me an estimate, how many survivors can we get before impact?”

“Estimated fifteen percent of survivors, Captain.”

Miranda sighed. “...It'll have to do. Helm, have a course out of here ready, for now, just keep us where we have a shot at the Maru, and where the Borg are focused on us. Co-ordinate with Smara's station, I want a torpedo lock as soon as we turn around. Samara?”

“Torpedo lock on the Kobiashi Maru drive section prepared as well as possible from my end. Firing high yield dispersal patterns at the Borg with our forward launcher.”

What was remarkable about the ship was how little stress combat seemed to put on it. If the Normandy went into combat, she had to strap herself into a safety harness. This ship just shook. Sometimes a little violently, but not bad enough anyone had even bothered to put seatbelts on the chairs. Control wasn't down to a pilot or gunner, there was no distraction from the fact that people lived and died by what she said.

“Kobiashi Maru advises their impulse engines are too damaged for proper ramming speed,” Seven said. “They expect impact, but it will be far from spectacular.”

“Acknowledged,” Miranda said.

Miranda watched the viewscreen as the Kobiashi Maru built up speed and crushed itself against the sphere, the hull crumpling at first, but drilling into the sphere as the anti-matter charges from the self destruct system started to loose containment and detonate, one by one. When it was clear the ship would penetrate no further, Miranda spoke up.

“Seven turn us around. Samara, fire on the Maru.”

“Torpedoes away.”

The shot penetrated the unshielded Kobiashi Maru with ease, rupturing the warp core, and tearing the sphere apart from the inside out with the resulting anti-matter explosion.

“How many did we get, Seven?”

“Ten percent.”

Miranda nodded slightly, trying to contain her disappointment. Even if it was just a simulation, that would be a lot of dead people if this were real.

“The admiral is going to have something to say about this,” she said. “End program.”

Miranda left the holodeck, though she noticed Samara catching her eye, as if to try and tell her she'd done the right thing. Coming from Samara, Miranda wasn't quite sure how to take that.

“Captain Lawson.” Admiral Janeway was waiting just outside the holodeck, having been watching on the control screen.

“Admiral,” Miranda said, standing at attention as well as she could. She had foregone practicing Starfleet procedure in favor of learning about her new ship. She wished she could say the same about some of her crew.

“At ease, Lawson. And relax. You did well.”

“I failed to complete my mission. 90% of the Kobiashi Maru's crew perished.”

“That's because your mission was unwinnable, Captain Lawson. The Kobiashi Maru is a no-win scenario. A fact we try to keep from people before they attempt it, though usually unsuccessfully. In fact, I've never seen someone go into it not knowing it was a no-win scenario before now.”

“I think I see,” said Miranda. “By what standard am I being judged then?”

“Well, now, that's up for debate. In the old days, the test was supposed to be to see what a captain would do in the face of certain death. It was less a test, and more to prepare them on how to face that sort of situation. However, especially as more inventive recruits have found imaginative ways to attempt to solve the test, we also like to look at it to see how you'll stand under pressure. To be honest, we have no grading scale. What you do is taken under consideration, under normal circumstances, as a way to make a guess as to what sort of commander someone will be. How well you did depends on the standards of whoever is looking at it.”

“You said I did well?”

“From my point of view, you did exceptionally well. The simulation is harder than it used to be now. It used to be Klingons but... no win scenarios are much easier to think of when it's the Borg, and we're no longer enemies with the Klingons, so it seemed... unwise to continue to use them in battle simulations. It was Romulans for a time after that. The Borg simulation is the hardest yet. Most people lose their ship and the Kobiashi Maru with all hands, and leave a Borg sphere to run around Federation space at will. You got out with a small number of people from the Kobiashi Maru, no hands lost on the Nautilus, and destroyed the Borg sphere. You failed your mission, but... well... there's worse ways to fail.”

“You judge the simulation by the end results then?” Miranda said, somewhat surprised. That had certainly been the logic behind her decision. She had not expected a Starfleet Admiral to agree with it.

“In part, yes,” said Janeway. “In the old days, you were expected to stand and fight. Hence why it was more to see what you'd do against certain death. But we've grown... less idealistic, especially where the Borg are concerned. But I'm actually not as concerned with the end results. You did well, in my book, because you were able to size up the situation, realize the impossibility of completing your original task, and adapt to leave the situation with minimal losses.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

As Janeway walked away, Jacob started to come up to Miranda. In spite of having known him for some time, Miranda always found Jacob to be rather hard to read. She supposed that was part of the reason why she liked him.

“Miranda... we gotta talk about the engineer.”

“You're the first officer, he reports directly to you. What do you think of him?”

“He's nice. Hard working. Competent,” Jacob shook his head slightly. “And he has no business being Chief Engineer. It's not his fault. He just doesn't have the experience to perform under pressure. He gets lost, turned around, and starts doing stupid things. If it weren't for this whole Reaper thing, he probably wouldn't be on a ship yet, much less in charge of engineering. He'll make a good officer some day. He just... isn't one today, and we don't have the time to wait.”

Miranda nodded. “You just summed up most of the crew. Do you have a recommendation?”

“Legion.”

“We talked about this, Jacob. I want someone who has actually seen a warp core being in charge of the warp core. It's not like having Samara at tactical. She has tactical experience, she just needs to adapt to new weapons and a new firing system. I'm told it's very user friendly. I had a look at it myself, in case I have to wind up shooting it. Or Zaeed in security. Hardly different from what he normally does. The warp core is engineered completely differently from the drives Legion has worked with, and not something one picks up in a hurry. I'm still worried about having one on the Normandy.”

“You're not telling me anything I don't know, but Legion isn't like us. It won't take him more than a day to memorize everything our current engineer ever knew about warp cores. He handles well under pressure. He'll get the job done.”

“You're confident of that?”

“I'm a lot more confident of it than I am in Ensign Raely. Look, one of Ensign Raely's skills is honest judgment about his own capabilities. He's not ready for this. I know he isn't ready for this, you know he isn't ready for this, and, most importantly, he knows damn well he isn't ready for this. Put him up against the Reapers and tell him he's in charge of the engine room, and he'll crack. Legion won't crack.”

Miranda nodded slightly. “All right, you make a fair argument. Get Legion on the team.”

“I'll have Ensign Raely work closely with him. It'll take a lot of the pressure off him, and his knowledge of the warp core can compliment Legion's lack of experience in that area.”

Miranda smiled at that. “Smart plan. You're making being the captain too easy. Make it so.”

“Imitating Picard now?”

Miranda shrugged. “I like it. Makes me feel god-like. I tell people to make things be so, and they are so. It's a nice feeling.”

“If you go crazy on a power high, I'm taking command of your ship, you know.”

“Noted. Speaking of crazy, get Yeoman Chambers on board the ship if you can. I doubt Ensign Raely is the only one feeling in over his head. I think my crew needs her to help them relax more than Shepard's does.”

Jacob nodded. He wasn't as easy to read as some people, but Miranda could tell he was curious as to if the idea was for Kelly to provide therapy, or other kinds of comfort. In all honesty, she couldn't answer that. She'd decided she wasn't going to ask exactly what kind of therapy Kelly provided when she was originally brought onto the Normandy. The policy had served her well in helping her avoid things she didn't want to know about, and she saw no reason to abandon it now.

“She's going to be hard to get off the Normandy,” was all that Jacob actually said.

“Ensign R'Lisa is a Caitain, yes?”

“Yes...”

“So, go tell Chambers we have a catgirl.”

“... She's going to be easy to get off the Normandy.”

“Have fun. I'm supposed to be in a meeting with the Janeway, Picard, Shepard, Crusher, and Solus. Apparently the doctors have some findings they need to report. If I don't fall asleep, meet me at dinner to go over the crew logs again.”

“Aye, Captain.”

\----- 

Janeway was the last to walk into the meeting, to no one's particular surprise. Miranda had rather gotten the impression that she was almost perpetually tardy. What she was surprised about was the fact that Legion also seemed to be attending the meeting. She hoped Jacob went to recruit Kelly first, or else he'd be in a bit of a wild goose chase.

“Doctor Crusher, Doctor Solus, you had findings regarding the Borg?”

“Yes. Borg presented problem from offset. Believe to have solved it. Borg individuality problematic,” Mordin began. Crusher just looked resigned to not getting to say anything today. “Large collective hivemind, yes, but each mind desires to no longer be part of hive. Collective desire of all the individuals to destroy the collective and leave should destroy the collective, and yet collective lives on.”

“There is a... will, inside the collective. A larger force that suppresses individual desire and pushes the drones into lockstep,” Picard said quietly.

“Yes,” said Mordin. “Borg Queen. As demonstrated by you, when Queen destroyed, unifying influence vanishes, the Borg destroy themselves. Sometimes.”

“The question is,” Crusher said, seizing her moment as Mordin paused for breath. “How is it one single Borg has such a high degree of control. From what we can tell, the collective generally has one Queen to control the entire bunch. When they time traveled they had to send a second queen back in time, because those Borg would be cut off from the main collective. Besides that... one Queen to suppress billions on billions of voices.”

“Unsurprisingly, answer lies in good old fashioned dissection!” Mordin said with an almost childlike glee, before tossing what looked like a metallic, featureless head on the table, with a small amount of metal spine trailing from the end. “Borg Queen's head, recovered from engineering section of Enterprise E. Replica, actually. Made it to keep in lab. Thinking of calling it Yorick. Had to do dissection on simulation in holodeck. Starfleet Command believes Borg artifact responsible for converting Admiral Ross. Won't release it for further study as safety concern. Fortunately, very detailed scans already taken and perfectly safe for study. Organic material already removed from the outside, thanks to plasma coolant. Should look into shielding coolant tanks better, by the way. But organic material inside still reasonably intact and well preserved.”

“Well, what's in there then?” said Janeway.

“A brain,” said Crusher. “An organic brain. Not cloned, or lab grown. A real brain that was once inside a real person. It doesn't match any known species.”

“But,” said Mordin. “Brain does contain trace amounts of element zero, meaning brain did not originate in this universe. In addition, dating shows it to be well over ten thousand years old. Only logical conclusion is that this a Zah'til brain. Likely original Zah'til bodies died out thousands of years ago. Brains preserved in cases like this and used as Queens.”

Picard frowned at that, clearly revolted by the thing in front of him. “Why go through the effort? Why not just use any brain?”

“Regular brains not indoctrinated by reapers. Ability to control the collective has nothing to do with structure of Zah'til brain, but rather indoctrination of original Zah'til. That is the controlling force keeping the collective together.”

“The last two times they attacked here they sent a queen,” said Miranda. “That implies that they were far enough away from the main collective they needed to send one in person. After all, they only have so many Zah'til brains, they can't afford to waste them. When they invade again, they'll bring another one. If we can kill her, our problem solves itself.”

“Not gonna be that simple,” said Shepard. “They aren't sending a Queen. They don't need to. … They're just gonna send a whole Reaper instead. If it's indoctrination that keeps them in line, that should be more than enough.”

“Any other findings?” asked Janeway.

“Actually yes,” said Crusher. “We have good news as well. After the battle of Wolf 359, we looked into ways to block Borg signals. They were never used as, at the time, we feared blocking Picard's link to the collective may have killed him. The last time the Borg attacked, they managed to board the ship without detection, and shut down our ability to block their signals before we were even aware of them. In retrospect, disonnecting Picard that way may not have hurt him, but it would for many drones. Being suddenly cut off from the collective would cripple their abilities, and possibly kill some of them outright.”

“Can you deploy this as a weapon?” said Janeway.

“Unfortunately not. However, the Borg have been known to invade ships in combat. We can outfit our fleet with this technology. If the Borg try to beam over landing parties while the suppression field is active, fire teams should be able to destroy them without fear of the Borg adapting. Some may die outright.”

“I'll have the fleet prepare their suppression fields immediately then. The final issue I wanted to talk about was Legion. I am to understand he's been getting transmissions from the Borg?”

“It would appear the Young Machines see us as similar to their collective. They wish me to join with them.”

“That makes sense,” said Crusher. “The Borg don't care about individuals, often, but they do care about things that are unique. Not unique the way people are unique, more major differences than that. Biological and technological distinctiveness.”

“And Legion isn't like any other Geth,” said Shepard. “From what I've heard, they probably want to know how he manages a collective without a queen. They could use him to shore up their one weak spot.”

“I'm sorry, but I have to ask this,” said Janeway. “You and the Borg are very similar. How do I know you won't turn on us?”

“Geth believe all intelligent life must self determinate. The Borg ideal of assimilation runs counter to this assertion. For us to join with them would be antithetical to our beliefs, as well as hinder our own ability to self determinate.”

Janeway nodded. “Sounds about the same as why the rest of us don't want to be assimilated. That's good enough for me. If something should happen and you are taken though, what is the risk they could use you to rid themselves of their dependance on queens?”

“I can answer that, if you don't mind, Legion,” said Shepard. “The Geth govern by consensus. All of the programs have to agree on a course of action before it's taken.”

“That sounds nearly impossible,” said Janeway.

“For us, it would be. But the Geth aren't like us. Individual programs don't have the same sense of identity that people do. A single Geth program is not intelligent enough to be self aware. Only through networked intelligence do they become alive. You can understand why individuality is not the ideal for Geth that it is for us. They share memories, thoughts, points of view. Each one can look at a problem from all angles, and see exactly how and why the other programs are coming to their conclusions. There's no personal ego at stake either. In a sense, the Geth are able to govern themselves because they all want to take the best, and most logical action, and will look objectively at the data to see what that is. I can also personally attest that these decisions are also tempered by a moral code.”

“I see,” said Janeway. “If the Borg tried to implement a governing process like that, it'd be just as if they didn't have a Queen.”

Legion nodded. “The Geth are a collective from mutual desire to be a collective. We are in no danger of pulling ourselves apart. The Borg force a collective state. They need a control influence that Geth do not.”

“We've seen Borg outside the control of a Queen before,” Janeway said. “Seven of Nine. Picard after he was saved. Hugh, and later his Collective. Seven even had a brief experience where a small number of members were disconnected from the collective. They weren't destroyed.”

“It depends heavily on the Borg drones,” Crusher said. “If they're heavily indoctrinated, they offer no resistances, though they'd be vegetables. Some who are used to the collective may not have the same pull to break free, and could, somewhat like the Geth, be in communities with each other willingly. Individuals disconnected have no other minds to compete with, so they are usually all right. Large numbers of people with little indoctrination though, like Borg drones mostly made of former crewmembers... every mind pulls against the other...” 

“If they can indoctrinate through this hive mind, why can't they use any indoctrinated drone?”

“Zah'til unique,” Mordin said. “Indoctrination of AI and brain both at once. Able to spread more easily, while retaining some amount of will. Likely why Queen believes herself to decide for the Collective. Really just bending to the will of the hive, but self aware enough to believe it is choosing. Any other drone indoctrinated enough to hold the collective together is not self aware enough to impose coherence. Simply have billions of minds shouting at once, even if not resisting. Not helpful.”

“... What is the risk then that I am... how do you put it? Indoctrinated?” Picard said. 

“It's... not nothing,” Crusher said. “... I know you still hear them sometimes. We hope your exposure was small enough it won't be an issue. We'd like to hope that your exposure was small enough that it won't be an issue but... we don't know enough about it to say for sure.”

“I suppose I shall have to ask our Asari friend to keep a close eye on me then,” Picard said. His voice was even but his face was pale.

“And me as well,” said Janeway. “I've been around her enough times. Now, Starfleet High Command has been in contact with the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation races to get a defense ready. Even our enemies, or shaky allies seem to agree. They might not shed any tears if the Borg were to take us out, but they know they don't stand any better chance on their own. Sadly there's still a lot to work out. Someone needs to get Commander Donatra up here and we can sort through some of this.”

Tali

“Looks like the Normandy is finally ready to fly again,” said Geordi. “It's been nice working on her. Part of me is gonna be sad I won't be able to see her in action.”

“It'd be nice to be on the Enterprise for the fight too,” said Tali. “You just have a lot more walls between engineering and space though. … I can't imagine going in any other ship but mine, really.”

“Neither can I. … Take care of yourself out there.”

“You too...”

Tali slid her hand around Geordi's marveling slightly at how humans and Asari were able to keep track of so many tiny little fingers at once.

“Geordi... I... Dr. Crusher told me about this... thing you can do with the holodecks... where we could... interact.”

“Tali, you don't have to rush things... We'll make it through this. We'll have time.”

“It's not my first suicide mission. I didn't really care the last time, if I died without having... known certain... pleasures. It's not like I don't have Nerve-Stim-- but I didn't have anyone I cared about then, not... not that way. I don't know if I'm ready to go that far, but I don't want to die without letting you at least see my face.”

Geordi looked rather confused at that. “Tali, I can see your face...”

“What?”

“It's right there. … Can people not normally see through your face plate?”

Tali felt her face turn red as she let out of little squeak and reflexively covered her mask with both hands.

“I'm sorry, I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to see...”

“No! No! It's fine...” said Tali, not removing her hands. “I'm being stupid, I was going to show you anyway... I just... Keelah, I feel like I just found out I've been walking around the whole ship naked...”

“Well, if it helps at all, I doubt anyone else can see through it.”

Tali nodded slightly removing her hands from her face before crossing them over her chest.

“You can't see through my suit, right?”

“No. Believe me, I would have told you if I could see through the suit. I just assumed the mask was transparent for everyone.”

Tali nodded, and tried to relax, though she was having trouble accepting the idea that she'd been flashing her face at her boyfriend the entire time they'd known each other. In retrospect, it was starting to make sense, how he'd always been able to maintain eye contact with her so well. Most people tried, but in the wrong conditions, it was harder to see her eyes under the mask, and people wound up looking at her forehead or nose instead rather frequently.

“Why don't we go to the holodeck?” said Geordi. “Nothing has to happen. But it might be nice to hold hands without gloves.”

Tali nodded and took hold of Geordi's hand again, heading back onto the Enterprise. She had already familiarized herself with how to make sure what was going on in the holodeck was private and no one walked in, so that wasn't a worry. In fact, it was about the only thing that wasn't a worry.

“Right... well... I'll go and get the program set up... take any holodeck five, you'll know what program to select when I have it ready...”

“See you shortly,” Geordi said.

Once she and Geordi had split up, as they'd be in technically separate rooms, Tali started to feel herself growing very warm. This was, after all, completely insane. She was seriously considering being with another person in an intimate way. It wasn't that she felt like she wasn't ready for it, not exactly. It wasn't that she didn't want to either... the thought of actually doing it, however, was making her heart pound in equal measures excitement and terror. She tried to remind herself that she was, in fact, a grown woman, not a stupid teenager and that having sex with her boyfriend was now considered to be both acceptable and normal behavior.

A very large part of her still felt like a misbehaving teenager. It was a very similar feeling to the first time she'd been able to have alcohol, of disbelief that she was actually allowed to do this, a general feeling like, even if it was allowed, it probably shouldn't be, and a certainty somewhere in her head that she was still, somehow, going to get in trouble for it.

After what felt like an eternity she found herself walking into the holodeck.

“Computer... sterilize and run joint program with holodeck five...”

There was a slight buzzing sound as the holodeck sucked away the contaminated air, replacing it with a replicated version of air, manufactured from the base elements alone, free of contaminates of any sort. The walls were covered in a thin forcefield, absolutely sterile to the touch, and completely impenetrable by germs and contaminates. A small forcefield was even placed around Tali's suit, so that no contaminates from the outside of the suit would leak into the air. It would fit the form of her suit so it could be removed, and would let Tali exit the suit, but wouldn't allow anything else to pass through.

“Sterilization complete. Joining with holodeck five.”

And then Geordi appeared.

Tali smiled slightly, not entirely able to meet his eyes.

“Well... here we are... Did you... have a program in mind?”

“Nothing in particular,” said Geordi. “Though something would probably be better than blank walls.”

Tali was relieved, as she did, in fact, have a program in mind, and had spent some time creating it before hand, making sure every detail was perfect.

“Computer, run program Tali One.”

With a slight shimmer their surroundings changed completely. Gone was the holodeck. Instead they were in somewhat more cramped quarters, the walls and floor covered in colorfully knit quilts that muffled the sounds of crowds and talking from the outside. There was a hammock hanging in one corner, and part of the floor was, essentially, a raised pile of blankets, sheets, pillows, and padding.

“This is your home, isn it?”

Tali nodded. “I figured... well there's enough that's new and weird... best to call up someplace old and comfortable.”

“It's, uh...”

“It's a trash heap, I know.”

“No,” said Geordi. “Parts of it are very nice. The quilts are actually very pretty. Though they'd probably look better if I could see them the way they were made to be seen.”

“And the rest of it is a trash heap. Even I think so. … It's just my trash heap, and I love it. This was where I lived on the Rayya. … I went ahead and left my parents out of the simulation. … And the other family we lived with. And their beds.”

“Probably a good idea,” said Geordi, examining the bed, such as it was. Tali couldn't help but smile at that. The beds she'd seen since having left the flotilla... simply didn't exist here. She never had gotten used to them, hence why she tended to sleep in a hammock.

“We don't have mattresses. Sometimes we find them as scrap but the metal in the springs is recycled elsewhere. We can't waste it on comfort. But it's soft. And a lot less...formal than a bed.”

“I've never thought of beds as being formal before.”

“You just get in this however it's comfortable... it's not all... this sheet, then this one, then this one, with the pillows always at the top... you just slide in however works for you. On top of it, stick yourself in the middle, whatever. And you don't cover your whole body with one sheet, normally, they're too tangled for that, you just... drap stuff over yourself until you're happy, then go to sleep. If that sounds like effort, or you want something more firm for the night, you take the hammock, and just pull whatever blankets and pillows you like out of the bed.”

Geordi smiled. “Well that's better than a Klingon bed.”

“What's a Klingon bed like?”

“It's a shelf. Not a nice, soft, wood shelf either. Rock, or metal.”

Tali laughed at that.

“I'm absolutely serious. I'm kind of surprised they don't add nails as well.”

Tali sat down on the bed, as it also doubled as a sofa, and pulled Geordi down with her, slowly undoing the seals on her glove.

“Are you sure?”

“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous,” said Tali. “This is just... not something you do as a Quarian. Certainly not something you do in a house on the flotilla. But I'm safer without a suit in the holodeck than with a suit outside the holodeck. My suit filters can't get air as clean as the air in here.”

Tali slowly pulled her glove off. The last time she'd taken off anything more than needed for maintenance had been when she'd gotten her new suit. She barely remembered what her own skin looked like half the time. The last time she'd taken off her suit entirely had been when she'd gotten her new suit, after returning from pilgrimage. She always loved the feeling of open air on her skin, though it never failed to give her goosebumps.

She gasped slightly as Geordi's hand took hers.

“Please don't...” she whispered as Geordi started to apologetically remove his hand in response to her startled noise. She actually gripped on to it for a moment, before feeling it more softly.

“It's... I like it... rougher than I thought it would be... I only have myself to compare against, and I guess your skin stays pretty soft when you never let it out...”

Geordi seemed to agree about the softness as he brushed his fingertips over the back of her hand. Tali's breath caught in her throat and she felt her eyes start to drift closed in pleasure. Hardly even aware of what she was doing, Tali fumbled at her mask with her other hand, eventually managing to get it disconnected from the rest of her helmet.

She had never realized before just how hot the air was in her helmet, always trapped in the filter long enough that, by the time it reached her face, it had already been warmed by her body. The unfiltered air without the mask was so cool, so crisp, without the perpetual smell that had permeated her mask for so long, she'd learned not to smell it anymore. When she exhaled, the hot breath no longer stayed close to her face. Though she still felt as though she was positively melting from what Geordi was doing with her hand, she had to take a few minutes just to breathe the free air. 

Her free arm found itself wrapping around Geordi, pulling him close. When their lips touched, and she felt the smoothness of his inner lip against hers, whatever remains of self control she had shattered. She gripped Geordi with both hands and pushed him firmly down onto the bed, herself on top of him.

Troi

“Well... I guess some people could say I'm the Normandy's counselor. It's... in an unofficial capacity though. Very unofficial.”

“Well, you have a degree, right?” said Troi.

“Yes...” said Kelly, shifting slightly. “I do have a degree...”

Troi could feel the discomfort radiating off her. She was telling the truth, she just wasn't telling the entire truth.

“A degree in what, exactly?”

“Psychology!”

Well that was true. The emotion Troi had felt from her was hope. It may have thrown a less experienced empath, but she knew that this was just hope that Troi would drop the line of questioning there.

“What kind of psychology degree?”

Kelly blushed, and smiled the sort of tight lipped smile people use to try and cover their embarrassment. “It's... a Bachelors in Arts, actually.”

“So that's why your work is informal. You're not actually qualified to do it.”

Kelly nodded quickly, oddly happy. Not an emotion that made a lot of sense considering, which meant she was glad that she hadn't been asked about something else, some other reason why her sessions would be unofficial.

“And because you sleep with your patients.”

“Not all of them! And they aren't my patients.”

“I'm not judging you,” Troi said, lying slightly. She didn't care how many people Chambers, or anyone else, wanted to be with, as long as they were responsible about it. Sleeping with patients, however, was extremely unethical.

“I'm serious,” said Kelly. “I'm the first to admit, I'm not a counselor. Honestly, if someone had an actual mental disorder, I'd probably be the last person they'd want to see. What I am, is a friend. I can be a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to, someone who can make people laugh, or... a friend with benefits, if that's something we're both all right with. I give people what they need to relax, and not flip their lid completely.”

Troi nodded. She wasn't sure how comfortable she was with other people calling Kelly a therapist, but that was hardly Kelly's fault. And her official position on the ship was that of a Yeoman, not a therapist.

“Okay... so you're a friend. What if someone came on board who you couldn't get along with?”

Kelly was quiet for a long time. What Troi sensed off her was a genuine consideration.

“It's never happened, has it?”

“Come to think of it, nope! I'm pretty much everyone's friend. Sometimes people are a little scary at first, like Jack, Grunt, or Zaeed, but I'd still like to be their friend.”

Troi couldn't help but smile at this. Part of her wanted to call up her mother and put Kelly's powers of friendliness to the ultimate test, but that part was easily retrained by the part of her that would rather stick her head in the warp core than call her mother.

“That's very sweet, Kelly. … What if there's someone who wants to be... friends with benefits, and you don't like them that way?”

Kelly blushed.

“It's never happened, has it?”

“Not exactly, no. But if it _did_ happen, I wouldn't do it of course! That's not my job. It's just something I like doing. A lot. Most of them aren't comfortable with it anyway. They'd say they were if anyone asked, to save face, but most of them want more intimate relationships, which I'm not usually offering.”

“How does someone like you wind up in Cerberus?”

“Oh, that. Well, I do want to be a real therapist someday. I just... well couldn't afford it, and was knee deep in debt from just my first degree... Cerberus was willing to pay off my debt and pay for my career. And all I had to do in exchange was help people! That's why I wanted to be a therapist anyway. It seemed like a pretty good deal. Maybe I'd be helping humans more than other species, but I'm not picky.”

Troi really did sense something like an almost low-level universal benevolence from Kelly. She rather got the impression that, if you were to put Kelly and Hitler in the same room, Kelly would, somehow, find something to like about him, and honestly get along with him, even if she didn't approve of what he did. It was very sweet, though Troi wondered if it hadn't contributed to Kelly's nativity about Cerberus.

“I guess that university thing probably isn't going to happen now that I helped Shepard steal their ship and everything, huh?” said Kelly.

“Maybe not on your Earth,” said Troi. “But the economics of the Federation are very different. We don't really use money anymore. You'd be able to get an education free of charge.”

Kelly's eyes lit up at that, but there was a slight knock on the door before she could respond, and Garrus poked his head in.

“Sorry to break up... uh... whatever this is, but Jacob's looking for you, Kelly. Something about Miranda wanting you on her ship.”

“Oh... I don't know... I know her crew is anxious, but...”

“He thought you might say that. He said to tell you they had a catgirl on the crew.”

“... Pull the other one.”

“I think they prefer to be called Caitians, Garrus,” Troi said.

Garrus shrugged. “I've never even heard of them before, but that's what he told me to tell you.”

Kelly looked at Troi hopefully.

“They are feline in nature. About the size of a human, humanoid in features, generally. Catlike ears, fur, usually slitted pupils, claws. A tail, naturally. Basically fuzzy humans, with some catlike characteristics.”

“Excuse me, Dianna, I need to report to the Nautilus immediately.”

With that, Kelly rushed off, leaving a trailing sensation of lust and joy behind her.

“You're a counselor, right?” said Garrus, his mandibles flared out and chuckling slightly. “She's out of her mind, isn't she?”

“She's extremely compassionate, and very... open,” said Troi. “She's not insane. … Though she may be the closest thing to a saint I've ever met. … Keep an eye on her though. She may be bubbly, but that doesn't make her immune to trauma, and I don't think she's processed what's happened to her yet.”

“I still think she's a few calibrations short of precise but... maybe I've just gotten bitter with age. I'll keep an eye on her anyway. … I've never seen anything get under her skin though, so I'm not sure what I'm looking for.”

“You'll know it when you see it. If you've not seen anything get under her skin, it's not because she's thick skinned. In fact, she seems to be very sensitive to judgment and criticism from others. It's just that--”

“That everyone loves Kelly, so it never happens. I guess I should probably keep a lid on the crazy comments, huh? I guess someone that... all around nice is a pretty rare thing. Wouldn't want to turn her into me, now would we?”

“You're very self deprecating aren't you?”

Garrus's mandibles flared out again. From what she sensed off him, Troi guessed it to be a sort of smile. “I suppose you're right. I'd never thought of it before. Well, I'll go ahead and add that to my list of flaws.”

Troi laughed slightly. “I didn't mean it as... well as to be another reason why you should be self deprecating. I just mean to say that... you seem to judge yourself a lot harder than anyone else is judging you. You don't have to keep pointing out your flaws, other people don't feel that way about you.”

“Good, good, everything is going to plan then, They have no idea...”

“You know, most Betazoids are full blown telepaths. I may not be able to read your mind, but I've read enough Betazoid minds to know a few things.”

“Such as?”

“You frequently have thoughts that cause you some level of shame. Things that make you sometimes feel like you're a bad person inside, and just pretending like you're not outside. I also know that these thoughts are perfectly normal, and you're not worse than anyone else.”

“Except Kelly.”

Troi couldn't help but concede that point. “Okay, but everyone is worse in their heads than Kelly. Even me. Especially me.”

Garrus nodded. “I'll take that under consideration. For now, I have to make sure the Normandy gun is calibrated properly, before the Reapers show up.”

Tali

Tali lay on top of the bed, eyes closed, basking in the general warm and fuzzy feeling that permitted her brain, and vaguely wondering if this is what drugs felt like. Given Jack's self described fondness for both drugs and sex, Tali guessed it probably wasn't, or there'd be little need to do both. Either way, she didn't plan on finding out.

If this was what drugs felt like, it make a lot more sense why people did them, though.

She let out a small, content moan as Geordi draped an arm over her, and rubbed her side gently.

“If we ever get the homeworld back... I'm going to have to seriously consider nudism...”

“You wouldn't be too shy for that?”

“I don't know... Quarians don't really have a nudity taboo anymore. … When you can't be nude without dying, having a proper taboo against it is a little silly... I mean, it's still a signal of intimacy because... well you'd only do it with a mate, but...”

“You were pretty shy about your face,” Geordi pointed out.

“That's different. Faces are expressive, and I thought no one could see mine. It'd be like if you walked around, making faces at people because they couldn't tell you were doing it... only to find out they could see the whole time. Boobs aren't really very expressive. They don't give away too much about how you feel.”

“So... naked with a bag over your head?”

Tali laughed. “No! I'd probably get used to the face thing... it probably wouldn't happen. I'd probably want to put some clothes on... eventually. Right now, I feel like, if I had the chance, I'd never confine my body with anything, ever again.”

“Well, if you wanted to be a nudist, I would fully support your decision.” Geordi said, still rubbing her side gently.

Tali knew that, someday, she'd probably get used to the feeling of being touched. For now though, it was new, and fantastic, and just starting to pierce her bubble of contentment with a sliver of want. Geordi wasn't even touching her anywhere especially sexy... everywhere just happened to feel sexy.

“We could go again...”

“You could go again, maybe. Most men don't work that way.”

“I don't normally work that way either...” Tali said, playfully shoving his hand away. “If you're not ready, then stop teasing, you little bosh'tet.”

“ _That's_ teasing? … That Chambers woman did say something about Quarians being easy...”

“Yeah, we are pretty-- wait, that's what that means?! I thought it meant we were easygoing... Keelah, I repeated that in front of Garrus, that's why he was smirking so much...”

Geordi laughed at that, before slowly getting up and looking for his uniform. “We'd better go before we're missed. Even with the Normandy done, I'm sure they need us for something.”

“Yeah...” said Tali, sitting up. Her suit sat there in the corner, in pieces, ready to encase her again. She couldn't help but feel her bubble of contentedness pop at that.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter is short. Normally I'd merge it with another chapter, but it didn't quite work for this one. I'll have the next one out in very short order to help compensate.

Picard

Commander Donatra looked up as Picard walked in.

“There's going to be a warbird here to pick you up in a few hours.”

Donatra's eyebows arched slightly. “You mean to say they took my advise?”

“We've more important things to do than to start a war with each other. In fact, several Romulan ships will be crossing the Neutral Zone to help us fend off the Borg.”

“I see. Where is this warbird to take me? I suppose it'd be too much to hope for Risa?”

“It'd be a little much to hope for anywhere. While I'm not entirely privy to the nature of what your government does, I am given to understand that you are to command the ship in our fight against the Borg.”

Donatra laughed. “I get to die here after all. Well, at least I get to die with my people this way.”

Donatra stood up as Picard took down the forcefield to her cell. To his surprise, she reached out and shook his hand.

“I've underestimated you, Captain. You and your Federation. The Romulan veil of secrecy has protected us for a long time, but... I look at you people, and I realize we were fearing things we need not fear. We saw plots where there were none. I believe you said it was always a game of chess, with us? I'm only now realizing it isn't that way with you.”

“Make sure that message gets to your people.”

“If I live, I will. Maybe one day we can share a bottle of Romulan Ale on my homeworld, and we can find out if we'd truly get along.”

“I think I'd like that.”

Donatra stared at Picard in utter bafflement. “I invite you to my world, and offer you a drink... and you say you'd like that? You don't worry I'll poison you, or replace you with a clone, or hold you ransom?”

“I can't say I did at the time...”

Donatra leaned in close and whispered in Picard's ear. “Perhaps... you should be a touch more paranoid with regards to the clone part. Let whatever source is leaking you information know about that.”

Picard just gave a small nod to signal his understanding. The room was not bugged for sound, but Donatra didn't know that, and probably wouldn't have believed him if he'd said it. Best to just play along, and very definitely ask Liara to look into a Romulan clone of himself.

Shortly after he'd seen Donatra off onto her new Valdore-Class Warbird, the call came through from Janeway.

“Long range sensors have picked up one Borg cube, and one thing that I'm assuming is a Reaper, because it's big, with the cube, and scares the shit out of me. This is it, Jean-Luc.”

“Acknowledged, Picard out.”

Soon enough, Picard was on the bridge again, along with the rest of his crew as the fleet moved out to intercept the Borg. Even the historical significance of the moment, the first time a Federation and Romulan Fleet had ever mobilized as one, did little to ease the dread of the situation.

“Are you sure you wouldn't rather transfer to the Defiant, Mr. Worf? Our tactical officer is new, but will do a fine job. She's your ship, after all.”

“I had... considered it. But it would be an honor to die alongside you, Captain.”

“Your loyalty is appreciated, Mr. Worf, even if I don't share your sense of fatalism.”

He shared it a lot more than he wanted to admit.

“Counselor Troi--”

He didn't even have to finish the question.

“The crew, for the most part, shares Worf's sentiment.”

Picard took a deep breath, pushed a button on the armrest of his seat, and stood up.

“All hands, this is your captain speaking. A great many of you have been my crew for over a decade. Some of you, only a few years. In either case, you have all proven yourself, time and time again, to be the finest crew in Starfleet. I would trust each and every one of you with my life. Today, I'm trusting you with more than that. Whatever your race, whatever world you are from, I am trusting you today, with that fate of my people and yours. In the past, I have lectured on the virtues of humanity. I stand by those statements. I fear, however, I have been leaving out a good deal of my crew, by speaking only of the race I know best. When this day is done, I will personally ensure that the virtues of each and every race to serve on my ship will be recorded, if you will only grant me a little time to know you all better. Today, we are not human. We are not Klingon. We are not Caitian, Vulcan, or Betazoid. Today, we are the crew of the Enterprise. Today, we make all our races proud. Let's make sure history never forgets us. Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise. And once more into the breach, dear friends, once more. In peace nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the actions of the tiger.”

With that, Picard closed the com channel.

“I noticed you left out the bit about closing the wall with our English dead, captain,” said Riker.

“Let's hope the rest of the crew doesn't know their Shakespeare as well,” said Picard.

“Captain,” said Worf. “I'm getting a message from the Klingon high council. The fleet is on course to flank the Borg forces. They say that they would be honored to fight alongside you.”

“And that today is a good day to die, no doubt,” Picard said, somewhat shocked. The Klingons would be fighting alongside the Romulans. Just Worf fighting alongside the Romulans was shock enough. High Command had reached out, but Picard had assumed they wouldn't be coming. Last he'd heard, that's how it was shaping up. “Well someone had better alert the crew. I'm going to sound rather silly if I say 'Also the Klingons are coming, so we may not be as doomed as we think.' after all that.”

“I'll drop that in when I say a few words of my own,” Janeway said. She was actually seated at one of the rear consoles, looking for all the world like she had very little to do with the fight. In actuality, she had three of the consoles all giving her combat data about the battle at hand. It only made sense for her to be on the flagship, but she had refused to take command away from Picard. Instead she had opted to just co-ordinate the attack from there.

“I swear, looking at all this data, ordering all these ships about, I'm starting to feel like the Borg queen myself...”

Shepard

Shepard stood behind the galaxy map, waiting watching as Joker pulled the ship away from the Starbase so they could join the fleet. She always felt a little useless when the Normandy entered combat. Primarily it was handled by Joker, EDI, and Garrus. She trusted Joker to do the flying, EDI to pick the targets, and Garrus to do the shooting.

Unfortunately, that left basically nothing for her to do, but stand in CIC, and try to look commander-like, for the sake of morale, and hope her grip on the railing held so she didn't fall over and crack her head on the floor when things started to get crazy.

As long as she was just here for morale, she might as well do it right, she decided as she punched the intercom.

“This is Commander Shepard speaking. I know a lot of you didn't sign up for ops outside of Cerberus, but you stuck with me when I cut ties. I know none of you signed up for this. And yet here you are. I hardly feel like I need to make a speech. The fact that you are all here today, with me, shows courage and dedication above and beyond the norm. In a just galaxy, this ship would be headed straight for the nearest world with hot beaches and cool breezes. Against the Collectors, you did more than is right to ask of anyone. I haven't forgotten the sacrifices made when the Collectors boarded this ship. Sadly, as someone once said to me, life isn't about getting what you deserve, and so here we are today. Again, we go to do more than I could possibly ask of you. And yet, not one of you made me ask. Whatever you were before, whatever reasons you had for being crew on this ship, honorable or not, you are all heroes now. Today we fly out among aliens we've never heard of from planets we do not understand. The next few hours will decide the fate of everyone across two galaxies. Every mother, every son, every unborn child. They're trusting you, depending on you, to win them their future. A future free from the threat of the Reapers and the Borg. But take heart. You are not in this fight alone. As races, we may be strangers to each other, but we face our enemy together. And together we will defeat them.”

Shepard closed the channel and hoped like hell her speech had been at least halfway good, because she knew no one would tell her if it hadn't been.

Miranda

“I guess this is the time where Shepard would probably make a big speech, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Jacob. “That's what she did at the collector base. Heard Joker say she gave a pretty good one when she got command of the first Normandy too.”

“You any good at speeches?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.”

Miranda tapped the com button on her armrest.

“This is your captain speaking. All hands, prepare to move out and engage the Borg.”

“Very inspiring, Captain,” Samara said, as Miranda closed the channel.

“Yeah, whatever. Helm, bring us about with the rest of the fleet.”

“We could have had Chambers give a speech,” said Jacob.

“Chambers is still on the starbase. She broke down sobbing a few minutes after we got the order to move out. In her head, the Reapers and the Collectors are basically the same, and she couldn't take flying right back at them after what happened on the Normandy. I sure as hell wasn't gonna make her do it.”

“I don't see her being okay staying behind either.”

“She wasn't. I had Mordin knock her on her ass with one of those hypospray things. She'll be halfway to Risa on a shuttle by the time she wakes up. … It sounded like a place where she could be happy.”


	15. Chapter 15

Miranda

“Captain, we have the Borg in visual range.”

“On screen.”

Miranda rather quickly envied Shepard the lack of a viewscreen. She was sure the sight of a Borg cube in their space was enough to freeze the blood of the crewman from this universe. She couldn't deny that it was creepy either. She had never seen a ship quite like it. Just a solid, perfectly cubical, hunk of ship. No obvious engines, no obvious weapons, no part of it that made any part of it different from any other. It was simply a massive cube, and yet it worked. It shouldn't have been, and yet it was.

It was still the reaper that terrified Miranda. She had never seen one in person before, but she knew what they were supposed to look like, and it was horrifying. This one was worse. Parts of it had taken on the same pattern of the Borg ship, added parts without any thought to aesthetic, simply placed wherever happened to be handy. It gave the already horrible shape of a reaper an added asymmetry, an impression of cold carelessness that made it look almost insane. Knowing that it was, or had been, Harbinger only made it all the worse.

“All right people,” said Miranda. “This is it. Remember, Normandy is our priority. She's cloaked, but we still have a fix on her position. If we lose Normandy, we lose the war, right here, today. We protect Normandy at all costs.”

“This is Admiral Janeway to all ships,” a voice came out over the com without waiting for anyone to actual answer the hail. “The regenerative properties of the Reaper are unknown. It's possible it does not yet have that ability. Our first priority is the cube. Watch your approach, try to keep the cube between yourselves and the reaper.”

“You heard the admiral,” said Janeway. “Helm, adjust course starboard, keep us in motion, but try to limit reaper fire. Samara, target the cube, keep a photon lock on it, but we're going phasers only for now. Save the good stuff for when its defenses are down.”

Miranda waited impatiently for the ship to close into range, where Samara could fire as many of the phaser banks at once as possible. Finally the moment came.

“Fire at will!”

The ship rocked violently.

“The Borg have begun their offensive,” said Seven of Nine. “Shields are holding. Heavy damage to the Lexington and Shenzhou. Tractor beam attack caused a collision between them.”

“Helm, keep your distance from other ships. I know that's going to be hard to do while staying in the Borg shadow. Priority is distance from other ships. We can take a few reaper hits, we can't take crashing into our own allies.”

Picard

There was a measure of guilt that came with commanding the flagship in combat situations. Picard has a distinguished record of service, a good standing with Starfleet, and that put him in command of the fleet's most powerful vessel.

As the Shenzhou, unshielded and helpless, set a collision course for the Borg cube, Picard reflected on how it just as easily could have been him in that ship. If he'd been just a little bit of a worse officer, if he'd lost his trial after the destruction of the Stargazer, that could just as easily have been him, setting his ship to collide. Just for being slightly worse at his job, he could have been facing a death sentence. As he'd once said to Commander Data, it was sometimes possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. For all he knew, the crew of the Shenzhou had been every bit as competent and dedicated as his own.

The explosion was brilliant. If nothing else, the Shenzhou had a good run up, and the Borg had too many targets to worry about to stop them completely. The ship wasn't quite moving at relativistic speeds when it hit, but it was close. At that point, the anti-matter in their warp drive barely even made the resulting destruction larger than it already was. Knowing this, the Shenzhou had ejected their warp core once they got up to speed, letting it hit the ship moments after the Shenzhou did, so it could widen the crater left by the ship's impact and contribute more. It wasn't a maneuver recorded that Picard knew of. He made a note to be sure to change that, though it seemed a very empty way to honor their sacrifice.

Ultimately, the resulting crater was little more than a dimple in the side of cube, but it was something.

“There's our opening, Mr. Worf. Concentrate fire on that crater, don't let them regenerate. Let's make that count for something.”

“Captain the Borg are changing the orientation of their vessel,” said Data. “They are turning the crater to face the Reaper ship.”

“Admiral?” Picard said.

“Sounds like the best time to me,” said Janeway. “Romulan fleet, decloak and engage.”

It was typically the Cardassians who were known for their military precision, but it became quickly apparent that the Romulans were not slouches in that regard either. An entire fleet of green, and rather imposing Warbirds decloaked as one, shooting between the reaper and the Borg at high speed, in perfect formation, each one of them unloading their phaser banks and launching torpedoes at the crater in turn. The Romulan fleet was far more uniform than the Federation, made up of only D'deridex and Valdore class ships. As a result they were able to move as one in a way the Federation ships, almost all unique in some way, could not do while remaining combat effectiveness. The advantage was readily apparent, as they were able to keep between the cube and the reaper, in the space the Federation had left for them, where the reaper still could not fire without damaging the cube.

“Keep pressure on them while they're distracted with the Romulans,” said Picard. “Even the Borg aren't invincible. Wear them down, get the Normandy her opening. How are our shields, Mr. Data?”

“Holding for now.”

“Helm, try to keep us swinging in front of the smaller ships. We can afford to take a few hits for them.”

Shepard

“Tell me there's something we can do!”

The fight had been going on for hours. The Normandy had been in constant movement, slipping expertly between ships, never staying in one place long enough to be detected... and never firing a shot.

“We can hold course and wait for our shot,” said Joker. “Unless you want to change our orders, but I don't see what good being premature with our ace in the hole is gonna do. Someone tried to ram them, but it looks like the Borg caught their engines powering up before it happens. The only thing that's gonna hit them at speed is us.”

“They're getting slaughtered out there to keep us alive. There has to be something we can do for them! What are our options?”

“Make it count, or fuck everything up.”

Shepard sighed. If this was a ground battle, she could do something. Send a squadmate to give them cover fire, distract the enemy, deploy EDI's decoy to help them, something. Even if it didn't work, she could at least try.

In the ship, she couldn't do anything. All she could do was stand there and look down at the cockpit, and watch the ships explode through the windows. There were no orders to give. No actions to take. She just had to wait it out while everyone else died.

“Commander,” EDI said. “The Nautilus has slipped off course. They've taken a direct hit from the reaper.”

Miranda

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Miranda grabbed the body of the dead helmsman, who had brained himself on the console when the impact hit, unstrapped him from his seat, tossed the body up on the console, and slid him across it, onto the floor, trying to wipe the blood off the console with his uniform. Less than he deserved, certainly, but, as Miranda saw it, he was too dead to really care at this point. If he had any surviving relatives, she'd just lie and say his last act in the line of duty was piloting a valiant fight against the Borg, rather than telling the truth about how his last act in the line of duty was to be used as a squeegee to mop up his own blood. They would be... not exactly happy that way, but less horrified. And, now that the panel was at least 25% less covered in blood, the chances she'd get to tell them about it had just gone up.

“All right, I'm getting us back in the Borg shadow!” Miranda was deeply glad she had decided it was her duty as captain to know how to work all the stations on her bridge. “What's our status?”

“Shields are fluctuating,” said Seven of Nine. “Casualty reports not in yet. We have a Borg boarding party on the engineering deck. Suppression field still active and running. Security teams are on their way, in case any are still alive, and Ensign Lathrop is bleeding into the carpet.”

“We can get a new carpet!”

“By which I mean, his heart appears to be beating, or he wouldn't be bleeding quite so much.”

“Fuck. Captain to sickbay, send someone to collect Ensign Lathrop. You are not authorized to use the transporters until we get the shields stable again. Samara, discontinue phaser fire, we need that power to the shields, start the torpedoes instead. Seven, we're running a skeleton crew, do we have any empty decks?”

“Several.”

“Seal off anything the security teams don't need in order to move through the ship and cut life support. I want every spare bit of power we have going into the shields. Take the replicators and holodeck offline too, they aren't going to help us kill Borg.”

“Understood. Borg are attempting to get a lock on us.”

Miranda really wished she had a trained helmsman, but he was currently being dragged towards the turbolift by one of spare security officers. Hopefully he'd make a full recovery, she didn't want to see him dead, although she really didn't want to explain to him how she'd used him as a blood mop before tossing him on the floor and leaving him for dead. Shore leave somewhere nice, and transfer to a ship where the captain hadn't done that to him was probably in order. Assuming any of them survived. As it was, she was forced to try and pull off the maneuver herself, weaving the Nautilus behind shielded ships, and between debris so the Borg weren't able to get a solid lock on her. Joker had claimed flying the ships was too easy. She didn't doubt the validity of the claim either, but it seemed that was more a testimony to Joker's skill than it was to the ease of flying a Federation ship.

“When security is done with the Borg, have that team hit the shuttlebay. I want every shuttle programmed with an autopilot course to ram the Borg ship at full speed.”

“Understood, captain.”

“Jacob, do you know how to fly this thing?”

“Didn't have the time. That's about the only console I didn't learn how to use.”

“You don't seem to be needed on the bridge. Get to engineering, do whatever they need you to do. I know you're not trained, but you can at least be a set of hands there.”

“On my way.”

Zaeed

Zaeed rushed for the engineering section, practically spoiling for a fight. Space combat was always the worst, unless someone boarded you. In all honestly, he was disappointed it was only the Borg. He'd run simulations against them, and found them to be somewhat pathetic. Like husks, but slow. The only thing that made them formidable was their ability to adapt to attacks. And if that tech bullshit they installed worked the way they said it would, they wouldn't even have that. If they were even still alive.

They were so useless at the moment, that half of his security team was off fetching injured crewman from other parts of the ship and bringing them to sickbay. It's the sort of job that Zaeed would have absolutely hated to do, if he'd been hired as private security, but these Federation types seemed to be a bunch of ninny's anyway, and seemed perfectly happy to not get to fight. Although at the idea of picking up casualties, several of them paled, like they'd never seen a guy with his guts falling out of him before or something.

The rest of his squad weren't specially happy with fighting the Borg either. To their credit, they said nothing about this, and, so far, had managed to make it through the entire battle without pissing themselves. Which, Zaeed supposed, probably counted for something somewhere.

It looked like the boarding party had been huge initially. As they neared the engineering deck, most of the Borg were either dead, or catatonic, but the initial boarding party had been large enough that several still remained. Zaeed sighted down on the closest one and let out five rounds rapid through his Mattock rifle to no effect. The Borg had the same sort of shielding he was using. Not impossible to deal with, but who had the time for that? 

The squad with him also opened fire. It looked as if the Borg had developed phaser resistant shielding. Not phaser proof. One of the better security officers brought one down with some particularly good grouping. 

“Lemme show you how it's done, boys,” Zaeed said, pulling another weapon off his back. 

As Zaeed thought, the Borg had no adaptation against the Firestorm. He'd have rather used that Collector Particle thing Shepard picked up, but she had pointed out that, being Collector tech, the Borg would already have a counter for it. There was something more visceral about fire anyway. The smell was horrific, but it was still oddly satisfying, even if the security forces seemed unsettled by it. 

“That was too easy,” Zaeed said, once the smoke had cleared and the last of the Borg had been destroyed. “Computer, is that all of them?”

“Three intruders still present, now entering Engineering.”

“This lot were just a distraction people! Double time!”

By the time they got to engineering the place was a mess. One of a coolant tanks had been ruptured, though, Zaeed noted, it was not the crap that liquified organic material on contact, as his organic material remained unmelted. Nor did it seem to be attached to anything important, so he figured it was likely a backup or something. It was mostly just making it hard to see. Which was probably why most of the engineers seemed to be unaware of the Borg. Or, at least, unaware they weren't all dead. While there was a pile of borg bodies, no doubt more that didn't survive disconnection from the collective, three of them appeared to still be alive, and now up and moving again. Even Legion was so absorbed in his work that he had yet to notice that some of the Borg had picked themselves up.

In fact, he didn't notice until one of them pierced his casing with a set of wrist tubes.


	16. Chapter 16

Legion

As the implants being built across his network started trying to connect to the collective, Legion understood why these three Borg had survived, while the others had not. He could see into their minds, hear their thoughts... and they were empty.

These Borg had no desire to self determinate. They had no qualms about being in a collective. They didn't even seem fully aware they were in a collective. Constant exposure to the relentless noise of the collective had slowly emptied their minds of any thoughts they might have, any trace of the people they had once been.

Even now they were just trying to carry out their latest orders. There was no mind behind it. The only thing close to thoughts they had was vague confusion, fear, and emptiness, now the voices were gone. Like victims of indoctrination who were total puppets of the reapers, there was simply not enough of them left to survive without control of some sort.

“You will join us,” the three minds thought at him, trying to push their collective will against his.

1,183 programs pushed right back. “You will assist us in making repairs.”

“We will assist you in making repairs,” the Borg said, aloud and in unison. If anything, they seemed to relax. Voices were back. They knew what to do. They didn't have to feel empty anymore.

Miranda

“Status of the fleet?”

“Shinzhou is destroyed. Lexington is destroyed. Saratoga is destroyed. Excelsior is running on emergency power only. Exeter destroyed. Ghandi destroyed. Andromeda has vanished from sensors. Reliant has been evacuated. Borg seem to be ignoring the escape pods for now. Five Romulan Warbirds destroyed. Fourteen Klingon Birds of Prey destroyed.”

Of course the Klingons were getting their asses handed to them. The idiots had decided there was more glory in attacking the reaper. Helpful as the distraction had been for a few moments, now they were dead, not helping anyone, and everyone else had to dodge what was left of their mangled ships.

She also couldn't help but note the irony of sending a ship called the Ghandi into a war, though its destruction was oddly appropriate. She almost wanted to laugh, in fact. It wasn't funny. People, good people, were dead. Miranda wasn't sure if there was something wrong with her that she wanted to laugh, or if wanting to laugh was the only way there was to stop herself getting a post traumatic stress disorder later.

“Felidae is without shields--”

“Captain, the Felidae is firing on us,” Samara interrupted.

“You're sure it's not just friendly fire?”

“It is very deliberate.”

“I would hypothesize their suppression field is down,” said Seven. “The bridge crew is likely assimilated.”

“Lock torpedoes on the Felidae and fire. Warn the fleet to keep clear of the explosion.”

“We don't know that anyone besides the bridge crew is assimilated,” said Seven. “The majority of the ship may have no idea.”

“Acknoledged, Seven. Fire.” said Miranda. She really didn't need that idea haunting her nightmares, but Seven was doing her job. She was supposed to bring matters to the captain's attention, even if the captain would rather not hear it.

The part of Miranda's brain that seemed to be responsible for inappropriate humor chimed up to point out how good it was Kelly wasn't here, as the Felidae was a Caitian ship; she'd be heartbroken. Miranda opted to try and take comfort in the fact that she apparently needed a defense mechanism to deal with that order now. She may feel like a bad person for doing it, but before Shepard, she would have done it with a clean conscience.

She was going to have to have a few choice words with Shepard about this turning her into a better person thing later. Right now, being a good person seemed neither in her best interest, or the best interest of the fleet. 

“The Felidae has been destroyed,” Seven reported.

Naturally. Without shields, they didn't stand a chance.

“Zaeed to bridge,” a voice came through. “We, uh, we found the Borg intruders. They attempted to assimilate Legion.”

“You don't sound worried.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like it blew up in their fucking faces.. There's only three down here, and Legion somehow has them helping with the repairs. I'm going to leave a small detachment here, just in case, but I think the threat has been neutralized. Proceeding to shuttlebay. Zaeed out.”

Well at least something had gone right.

Picard

Picard watches as the Nautilus unleashed a string of suicide bomber shuttles. Almost certainly unmanned and on autopilot, each slamming into the cube at high speed, much like the Shenzhou had, though at a much smaller scale, and they weren't able to eject their warp cores for extra damage. Still, it was at least somewhat effective. The anti-matter yield on the shuttles was lower than that of a torpedo, but torpedoes weren't able to slam into ships at relativistic speeds. The amount of energy transfer from something moving at those speeds was simply staggering. Again, the Borg were able to use their tractor beams to at least slow the shuttles and mitigate the damage, but on any other enemy, it would have ended the fight. Were it not for the impracticality of installing warp cores in all the torpedoes, Picard could easily see forgoing anti-matter explosives, and just flinging blocks of metal at near light speed. Several other ships copied the Nautilus and launched shuttles off their own. The Borg seemed to be be having a harder time adapting to kinetic impact as well.

“Jean-Luc, it's time to give the Normandy her shot.”

“The hull isn't compromised enough yet. If we fire now, we may not get another chance.”

“Half the fleet just sent their shuttles on suicide runs, and there's still a fully intact Reaper. If we don't fire now, we aren't going to have enough ships to face that thing. I'm not sure if we will anyway.”

Picard nodded slightly.

“This is Janeway to the fleet. Concentrate your fire on these coordinates, then clear the way for the Normandy. Normandy, prepare to engage.”

Shepard

“Normandy, prepare to engage.”

“All right, people, this is it!” said Shepard. “Tali?”

“Ready to drop cloaking device on your mark. The Normandy's regular stealth systems can't take much more anyway.”

“Gunnery here, final calibrations are complete. … Final for today anyway.”

Shepard couldn't see much outside the window, but she could see hints of the entire fleet, Federation, Romulan, and what was left of the Klingons alike, firing everything they had.

“Commander,” Joker said after a moment. “We are clear!”

“Drop cloak and fire.”

Miranda

“Normandy is clear to fire, captain,” said Seven of Nine.

“Captain to engineering, be ready to give us everything you've got. If this works, the Reaper isn't going to care about hitting the cube and will be clear to fire, we'll want to scatter so it doesn't wipe us all out with one shot.”

Miranda watched the Normandy decloak on the viewscreen. In comparison to the Federation ships, it was absolutely tiny. It was smaller than even the Defiant. As many had said, it didn't seem to be size that mattered, as the Defiant had also been doing extremely well, being, Miranda had gathered, the only ship in the fleet actually designed to fight Borg.

Miranda saw something she had never seen before. If the fight hadn't been taking place in space, known for being rather large, she wouldn't have that the chance to see it at all. The Normandy's main guns fired twin jets of liquid iron, uranium, and tungsten, a dense alloy that almost instantly solidified into lances, slender and shining, but insanely massive, and moving insanely fast.

As the equation went, force equaled mass times velocity. And what was being fired was about as much mass as you could get, moving about as fast as you could go. She vaguely remembered hearing some Alliance guy shouting at recruits on the Citadel about a relatively tiny slug that worked on a similar principle. “Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space,” she believed his words were.

What Miranda actually saw, rather than getting a proper look at the jets of destruction, was simply a flash of light from the Normandy, and the Borg cube, almost simultaneously, exploding.

In fact, the cube was not destroyed, not completely. But, whatever had become of that shouting Alliance munitions officer, he would have been very happy and validated to know that the Thanix cannon had carved a massive chunk out of the cube, drilling it to the very core and leaving a gaping hollow there.

“Cube is not regenerating,” said Seven.

Miranda slammed on the helm controls, getting the Nautilus out of the Borg shadow as quickly as possible. The rest of the fleet did the same, all scattering in different directions, not giving the reaper anywhere to aim where it could take out too large a number of ships.

As it happened, it didn't matter. The reaper already knew what its target was.

“Captain, Enterprise has taken a direct hit from the reaper weapon.”

“Samara, lock on and fire. I don't care where.”

“Yes, Captain. Be advised, we are at 25% of our torpedo capacity.”

Miranda nodded. “It might still be enough, as long as that thing can't--”

“Confirmed, Captain,” said Seven of Nine. “The reaper can regenerate.”

Picard

“Damage report!”

“Hull breaches on decks 24 through 20. Shields fluctuating. We're losing our suppression field. Communications are offline.”

“LaForge to engineering, we're minutes from containment loss. I'm sorry, Captain, we're gonna have to jettison the core. We'll have enough emergency power to get clear of the battle and hold life support.”

“Can we ram the Reaper?”

“Sorry, captain. We're going to be limping to get clear as it is. We don't have enough speed to do anything more than break apart on impact.”

Picard sat down heavily, face in his hand.

“Jettison the core at the Reaper and prepare to disengage. Make it so.”

“Security reports coming in,” Worf said. “We're being boarded.”

Shepard

“Enterprise communications are down,” EDI reported. “It appears they are being boarded.”

“Boarded?” Shepard said. “What by? I thought the Borg were down?”

“It is possible the Reaper deployed husks,” EDI said. “However, I cannot be certain yet.”

“Do you still have a connection to your holographic body on the Enterprise?”

“Affirmative, Shepard.”

It wasn't right for the commander of a ship to leave in the middle of a battle. Shepard knew that. But she also knew she wasn't doing anyone any good here. 

“Can we hook up to the fleet? Let the Enterprise command through you?”

“Our communications relays cannot contact that many ships at once,” EDI said. “We could transmit to another ship, with the capability of reaching the entire fleet, but any orders would have to be relayed through both me, and another person, making the system too slow to be effective.”

“Damn it,” Shepard said. “Get to the transporter room then and beam me over. I can do more good repelling their boarding parties than I can here!” 

Shepard made sure her weapons were all secure. She was in her armor, in case they were boarded, and fully armed. She'd put on her full space helmet as well, in case of a hull breach. She was more than ready to fight on the Enterprise.

Shepard's stomach churned slightly at the disorientating effect of the transporter beam. She didn't like to think about what the transporter was doing to her, or why her brain even functioned while it was underway. Or if the blue haze was some sort of illusion generated by some very confused neurons. Either way, it faded to put her on the Enterprise somewhere. She couldn't tell quite where. One of the decks it seemed. 

Shepard slapped her combadge. “Shepard here. Heard you guys had a Reaper problem. I'll do what I can.”

Picard said something in response, but Shepard didn't hear it. There was a group of... things advancing towards her. They looked like a cross between the Borg drones Shepard had seen footage of, and the husks she knew too well, but with something extra. They still had tattered remains of environmental suits on. The glow in their eyes was still distinctly Quarian. Shepard dived for cover as they unleashed a stream of fireballs at her, the automatic door of one of the crew quarters sliding open fast enough to let her pass through. 

The room was empty, though it had clearly once been someone's home. Everything was put away a little too neatly. Someone who'd been evacuated before the fight then. Probably a science officer, or someone else who'd be little more than fodder for assimilation in a fight. It never felt right to fight inside someone's home. 

Fortunately, Shepard was spared the need as an arc of electricity snapped across all the former Quarians, putting them down long enough for Shepard to pump enough rounds from her Locust into them to kill them, or at least she hoped it could. 

Worf was standing in the doorway, holding one of the Normandy's arc rifles and with a fire in his eyes that Shepard normally saw only in Krogan. She didn't know if Klingons got blood rage like Krogan did, but he seemed lucid anyway.

“Commander Shepard,” he said, clearly somewhat surprised to see her there. “Thank you for the weapons. They are most serviceable.”

Shepard smiled slightly. She'd had Jacob fabricate some of the Normandy's heavier weapons for the Enterprise crew. She was glad to see they were still effective. 

“Commander Worf,” Shepard said. “I should have called you as soon as I got on board. What's the situation?”

“These... things are advancing towards the aft torpedo bay,” Worf said. “My team are pushing them back as best they can, but they've also sent something... large towards the bridge. It's ripping through the forcefields, but I can't split up my team.”

“I'll take the big guy,” Shepard said. “You hold them here. I'd give you some tips, but I've never seen Reaper soldiers like these before.”

“The unique ones appear to be few in number,” Worf said. “The vast majority are converted humanoids. Low intelligence. Relatively easy to destroy.”

“Husks,” Shepard said. “Just keep them out of arm's reach. The others... the Collectors used to take other species, in small numbers. Quarians who'd never left the fleet. Left handed Turians. Weird things. I'd say we're looking at what's become of them. Whatever they've got headed for the bridge, I'm confident I can take it though. Clear out everything inside... I'd say a hundred foot sphere, just to be safe.”

Worf nodded and started issuing orders to the security personnel as Shepard consulted the computer on the best way to get the monster that was tearing through their forcefields before running off. 

As it happened, she needn’t have bothered checking for the right route. The path of devastation wasn’t hard to follow. She’d assumed it’d be some sort of converted Krogan.

She turned on her tactical cloak as she started to hear the monster. It was everything she could do not to gasp when she saw it. 

She knew the Reapers didn’t go after species before they had proper space travel. It was on her mind a lot. If those Martian ruins had been undiscovered just a little while longer, just a few generations, humanity would have been safe for thousands of years. They’d have been like the Asari were, among the first to explore space, the leaders of a new cycle. Sometimes it almost seemed a better fate. But it’d only delay the inevitable. Shepard would have never met Liara. Never met most of her friends. They’d have died at the hands of the Reapers instead. Shepard almost felt selfish for being glad humanity had expanded when they did. So many people could have lived their lives free of the Reapers. But space had brought her so much.

She didn’t know if the Reapers were still okay taking samples from other species, or if it’d been the Borg that caused what she was seeing now though. The Yahg were sapient, but not on the Reaper’s radar. … Or so she’d thought.  
The beast was massive. A huge mass of flesh and electronics, with a triple sided maw of a mouth. It looked like bits of Husks had been used in transforming it as random limbs and heads jutted from its body in odd places. One of its arms had been replaced by a single massive gun. 

Shepard stood her ground as the thing turned in her direction and roared at her. She was still a good way down the hallway. Plenty far enough. It wasn’t the Yahg she needed to be worried about.

“That’s it big guy,” Shepard said, pulling the Cain off her back and letting it charge up. “Open wide.”

In a world of sane physics, the recoil would have turned Shepard into paste, but the technological magic of mass effect fields made the recoil heavy instead of suicide. 

Shepard activated her magnetic clamps on her boot as the resulting explosion tore through several decks and blasted a hole in the hull. She stood securely rooted to the deck until a force field activated over the breach and air pressure returned to the room. Of the Yahg, there was no trace. Only once she was convinced the air was dense enough to carry sound did she tap her combadge. 

“Shepard to Worf. … I think I got him.”

Miranda

“The Enterprise is leaving the battle. They'll be dead in the water soon. I can't reach them on communications frequencies.”

“Who's in charge of the fleet?”

There was a pause as Seven of Nine tried to find out. “Unknown. The line of succession is muddled. After Janeway and Picard, it was to go to T'Nala of the Felidae.”

“Oh for god's sake...”

“Followed by the commander of the Lexington, Exeter, and Ghandi. After that, it's unclear.”

There was a noise from the ops console.

“Romulan Warbird destroyed.”

Another noise.

“Excalibur destroyed. Lockheed is dead in the water.”

“Samara, you're cleared to use phasers again, our shields don't seem to be worth a damn against this thing anyway.”

Miranda started running through options in her head. There were not a lot of them. The only thing she had that was even close to an option was transparently insane, and heavily likely to backfire.

On the other hand, it would be quite a trick to actually make things worse. Worst case, they'd wind up like the Felidae. Not a major loss to the fleet.

“Seven, drop the suppression field.”

“Captain?”

“Trust me.”

To her credit, Seven of Nine complied. She likely didn't have any specific objections to this course of action, with the destruction of the Borg, but it was not an order that made an overabundance of sense either.

“The Borg cube has begun regeneration.”

“Tell the fleet to hold their fire, keep that suppression field down!”

“We are being hailed by the Borg.”

“On screen.”

The image on the viewscreen was replaced by the image of the interior of a borg cube, lines of drones in their alcoves, regenerating, though with a fair deal of rubble and debris lying about from the extensive damage the cube had taken.

 

“We,” the Borg began. Their voice was a chilling chorus, a hundred voices speaking as one, pitches interfering with each other. It actually reminded Miranda of a cathedral all chanting the same prayer at once, though far more horrible. “Have analyzed the Reaper defenses, as understood by this collective, Miranda-Acting-Captain. Reaper firing chamber appears to be a weakness while charging. Recommend concentrated fire. We will attempt to draw reaper fire away from the fleet.”

It had worked. The Borg numbers were thin enough that, now able to link to the remains of the cube, Legion was able to control them.

“... The Borg cube is engaging the reaper,” Seven said, after a moment. It was the closest thing to shock, or any emotion outside vague irritation, that Miranda had heard from her.

“Samara, lock on to the reaper firing chamber and coordinate with the fleet. Get all ships prepared to fire on my mark.”

“Weapons locked, the fleet is standing by.”

That surprised Miranda. They had no reason to take orders from her. Whoever was supposed to be in charge of the fleet, she knew it wasn't her. She supposed turning the cube must have gained her a little trust. They'd know she was responsible, she had told them to hold fire on the cube before it was clear the cube was now friendly.

She watched as the reaper's main firing chamber started to glow, pointed directly at the Borg cube.

“Fire!”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last brief chapter, save for an epilogue.

Miranda

The viewscreen was filled with light as phasers beams from across the ship all struck the same point. Glowing torpedoes streaked through what space was left to them, slamming into the reaper firing chamber in sequence. There was another flash as Normandy recharged for another shot, used the weapon that had been designed from Reaper weapons against the Reaper itself.

And, amazingly, the Reaper crumbled under fire, the energy it was storing up in the firing chamber suddenly being released, but not in concentrated form as a weapon, but throughout the Reaper, setting of an outstanding chain reaction as the fleet continued to pummel it with fire. Several Romulan Warbirds evacuated their crews into other ships and had their vessels slam into the Reaper on autopilot, at similarly relativistic speeds.

“Pulling us clear of the explosion,” Miranda said, pushing the Nautilus away from the Reaper shortly before the last of its defenses gave out and it exploded completely.

“We did it...”

Shepard

Shepard made a beeline for Miranda as soon as the ships had returned to starbase. The losses has been heavy to the point of being catastrophic. That seemed to be a pattern whenever the Federation faced the Borg.

A pattern that, thanks to Q, would never be repeated again. It was over. The losses had been heavy, but they were alive.

Even walking through the corridors of the starbase was a strange study in contrast, much like the battle of the Citadel had been. Groups of people grieving the dead, all the way from quietly mourning to practically howling in grief. At the same time, other groups celebrated the continued existence of life, similarly ranging from a quiet satisfaction, to joyous and often drunken shouting. It was actually somewhat amazing that some people had managed to already become inebriated.

Neither of the two groups seemed to mind each other overly much though. Those consumed with grief did not seem bothered by the presence of the drunken revelry, nor did those joyous complain of being brought down by the others. In spite of the rather different interpretations of the situation, both seemed to understand the other pretty well, and didn't hold any ill will towards each other.

“Miranda!” Shepard shouted, finally spotting her in the crowds, waving as she tried to force her way over.

“How's it feel to be the big damn hero?” Shepard said, when she finally managed to get over to her.

“I'm liking it. It's rather nice, actually. I can see why you do it. I don't think I'm going to be letting you hog the heroics anymore.”

“I was worried about you. I saw you take that hit from the Reaper...”

“Well, that turned out to be luck in disguise. A really, really good disguise.”

“I'm expecting you'll be getting some nice new Federation medals out of all this,” said Shepard. “I'd get yourself a case for them now, it's pretty much a sure thing.”

Miranda frowned. “I'm shocked you'd think so low of me, Shepard. Medals are all well and good, but you think that's really all I'd ask for?”

“What are you going to ask for then?”

“Oh, nothing. I'm keeping the ship, and that's final. I'm not asking for shit. … Like to see them try to take it from me.”

Janeway

The second the Enterprise was close enough to start getting communications bounced to them from the fleet, Janeway was, naturally, flooded with messages. It didn't help that most of the ships had been in contact with the outside world, while the Enterprise had not been, so every world spinning had time to send something her way, and she was getting it all at once. Keeping track of them all was looking to be almost a bigger task than controlling the fleet.

Most of them were requests regarding services for the various ships lost in combat. The Lexington, in particular, as it had taken heavy damage from the Borg in the last engagement with them a few years back. They'd probably have to settle for one big ceremony for all the losses, however. They'd make sure every ship got due respect. To Janeway's surprise, the Romulans had also forwarded her a list of the names of the ships and personnel they had lost, in case the Federation wanted to include it on the memorial. And, of course, there would be a memorial, and, of course, the names of the Romulans and Klingons would both be included.

What had surprised Janeway was to see the Caitian government had requested Miranda speak at the memorial for Felidae and crew. She'd try to see if she couldn't talk Miranda into it. She expected it was meant as a gesture to Miranda that they understood what had happened.

She made a note on a pad to be sure that the Shenzhou and Felidae were recommissioned. They'd earned that, at the very least. Even if U.S.S. Felidae A didn't exactly roll off the tongue. Though she suspected it may actually roll off a Caitain tongue fairly well.

“Never not busy, are you Katherine?” said Picard.

“I've been known to stop by the holodeck every few months,” said Janeway. “Victory aside, this is still something of a disaster, and we're short a large number of Admirals.”

Speaking of, a report from the Normandy popped up as well. It appeared the admirals, or what was left of them, had been recovered from the remains of the Borg cube. None of them had survived, but there was enough left to remove their implants posthumously and give them a proper burial.

“I'd ask the Borg if the minute amount of tactical data they got from the admirals was worth their lives,” said Janeway. “But the Borg are dead. And if they were alive, I know what they'd say.”

“Admirals are irrelevant, you will be assimilated?”

“Basically. Of course it was worth it to them, they don't value their lives to begin with. … You think Q will keep his promise?”

Picard nodded slightly. “I doubt he wants to, but the rest of the continuum will hold him to it.”

“Good. I know you're not comfortable with genocide, Jean-Luc, but the Borg were evil. And as far as I'm concerned, they're not a race. They're all just one really big evil life form.”

“You're right,” said Picard. “In a way, anyway. It’s not destroying the Borg that bothers me. It’s that it doesn’t bother me. That’s what’s getting to me. Fortunately, it's not my call this time. In either case, Katherine, you're going to have to ease back a little. You'll be late for the celebrations if you get buried in work.”

“I can stand being a little late.”

“There wouldn't be any Chateau Picard left by the time you got there, I can assure you of that. I only had a handful of bottles on the Enterprise.”

Janeway put her pad down. “You're right. It can wait. At least until after I've got a glass of wine in my hand.”

Miranda

It was a very long time before Miranda was finally able to break free of her new-found admirers and get a little time with just herself and the Normandy crew.

And also Geordi, because Tali had refused to let go of him since he returned from the Enteprise.

“I suppose it's going to be about time we went home soon,” said Shepard. “I'm told they should be able to open transit between universes soon. We still have unfinished business back home.”

“I think we've all earned a little time off,” said Miranda. “And I'm not going back. Not right now, anyway.”

“You had said something about keeping that ship?” Shepard said.

“You're damn right. Besides... I supported Cerberus for a long time. I know I backed some... morally iffy things. And was directly responsible for at least some deaths. I figure Starfleet is a chance to make up for that. And while you may have unfinished business, as far as I'm concerned, I’ve got a clean slate here.”

Shepard nodded. “I can respect that. Though I except most of the crew you stole from me will want to come back. … Where's Chambers anyway?”

“Not mentally capable of facing Reaper threat,” said Mordin. “Sent her to Risa. Should be there by now.”

“Risa?” Shepard said. “You sent her to Risa?”

Miranda smiled. “Lots of beaches, and, if what I'm told is to be believed, basically everyone who lives there shares the Kelly Chambers attitude towards intimacy. Seemed the right thing to do.”

“I think we should go there and pick her up,” said Tali. “In fact, I volunteer for this grim duty.”

“I believe you said something your little speech that if the universe was a fair place, we'd all be headed for warm beaches with cool breezes, or something like,” Garrus added.

“Fair point,” said Shepard. “We'll take the Normandy to Risa for a while before we head home. Is there anything I should know about the place?”

Miranda shrugged. “They're pretty easygoing. They don't mind what you wear, or how you act, as long as you're nice, and respectful. So... not a lot of local customs to worry about. From what I hear, most people there have feelings towards clothing that are similar to young Asari maidens, the men and women alike, if you want to blend in. But they don't care what you wear.”

“Kelly must think she's died and gone to heaven,” said Garrus.

“I vote we head there _immediately_ ” said Tali. “We can't just leave Kelly stranded there all alone...”

“Even stuck in that suit, you want to go?”

“I have eyes.”

“Samara?”

“I may not be as interested in... carnal pleasures as I was in my youth. However, I think meditation along a quiet beach, with the sound of waves and avian sea life sounds very relaxing.”

“Mordin?”

“Most planets have unique aquatic life. Beach could be very interesting. New seashells from new species. Could make for some interesting experiments…”

Grunt looked skeptical.

“I’m sure there’s a noodle place,” Miranda said. 

“Yeah, all right, let’s go. But I’m not taking off the armor,” Grunt said.

Shepard nodded. “All right, all right. Your objections will all be noted. Now, we're gonna have to suck it up, and go save Kelly from this awful, awful planet Miranda so cruelly marooned her on.”


	18. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even I think this ending it sappy, but with so many continuity changes, I felt I had to do a follow up on the status of both universes and their occupants, in the loose style of Codex entries. 
> 
> Thanks all for reading!

Commander Shepard returned to her version of Earth to face trial for the destruction of a Batarian colony. She was acquitted when several classified Batarian reports were coincidentally leaked before her trial, verifying her version of events and justifying her actions. She continued to serve as Council Spectre, as well as ambassador to the United Federation of Planets, before retiring to London, where she lived out her days with her wife, Liara T'Soni, and three daughters.

Miranda Lawson became the first person from another universe to join Starfleet. She had a distinguished career, but is best remembered for her activism regarding the rights of the genetically engineered.

Liara T'Soni, officially, contained her career as a distinguished archaeologist, eventually publishing several controversial papers that challenged the common idea of the Protheans being a largely benevolent and wise race. She took a brief (by Asari standards) hiatus from her career to settle with her wife on earth, before returning to academia after her passing. Her findings eventually lead her to discover a live Prothean, which directly lead to proof of her earlier papers. Unconfirmed rumors say she slowly dissolved her criminal empire over the course of her life, with her daughters eventually continuing her work in that regard. The fact that all three of her daughters became wealthy and successful before the Shadow Broker finally vanished for good is, of course, total coincidence.

Tali'Zorah became an admiral on her return to the fleet, and became the Quarian representative to the United Federation of Planets, once the Quarians became members. With the help of Legion, she began the slow process of peace talks with the Geth, ultimately involving the creation of two new moons around Rannoch to serve as Geth superstructures. She was among the only Quarians not to change her name on return to the homeworld, and lived out her days on Rannoch as Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, along with her husband Geordi LaForge.

Garrus Vakarian spent most of his life attempting to correct injustices on various worlds throughout both galaxies. Often said injustices were corrected at great distance with a precision sniper rifle. While his exploits were fairly well known, there was never enough proof to convict him of any crime. In spite of occasional attempts to settle down, Garrus spent the rest of his days moving from place to place, often visiting friends, and frequently working in the company of Zaeed Massani. While Garrus kept in touch with most everyone from his past, he made frequent visits to Alliance Earth especially, being the unofficial uncle to Shepard and Liara's daughers. The particularly proficiency Liara's youngest daughter had with a sniper rifle, while serving as a commando, is credited to his inappropriate training of her as a child. Unsurprisingly, all three of Liara's children stated that Garrus was their favorite uncle while growing up.

Samara departed for the monastery on Kallini, where, as a Justicar, she ensured the safety of both the Ardat-Yakshi from the outside world, and the outside world from the Ardat-Yakshi. In addition, she taught meditation techniques to those who suffered from the condition, helping them to find peace with their lives. While the Council and the Federation both retained control over their respective spaces, the eventual alliance between the two lead to Federation investigation as to the treatment of the Ardat-Yakshi. Thanks in part to the dramatic decrease in violent incidents since Samara began her teachings, the Federation was able to work closely with the Asari government to dramatically improve the treatment of the Ardat-Yakshi, allowing them far more freedom outside the monastery than before, and a far more secular, and less confining treatment in the monastery. While she was never able to acknowledge her two surviving daughters as such, it was known by all at the monastery that she loved her daughters very deeply, and it was for them she had returned. She was said to have spent more time with Rila and Falere than would have generally been appropriate for a Justicar to give to individual students, but no complaint about her behavior was ever made, nor was it even commented on until after her passing.

Jennifer “Jack” Kyra went on to teach biotic students at Grissom Academy. She held the position for the rest of her life, never retiring, citing her reasons as being “Fuck, I'm not that old yet.” In spite of her advanced age, the quality of her teaching never diminished. Some believe it may have improved. As one student reported, “There was nothing like having your ass kicked by a geriatric woman to teach a little respect.” In spite of her occasionally harsh lessons, and harsher language, she was almost universally beloved by her students. The Jack Kyra Biotic Academy is named in her honor.

Mordin Solus returned to Sur'Kesh, where he carried out research into curing the genophage, before, in secret, dispersing a cure from the Shroud facility on Tuchanka. He was arrested and convicted of treason again Sur'Kesh. However, he mysteriously vanished from his cell, with a single red rose left in his place. Shortly thereafter, a Salarian doctor opened a clinic in the Federation version of Japan. No link between the two was ever conclusively proven, in part because of the Federation's refusal to turn over any records regarding the Salarian to Sur'Kesh. Sur'Kesh maintains they have no record of any births that matched the doctor's name, and certainly no medical graduates.

Thane Krios died of Kepral's Syndrome ten years after these events. Federation medical science was quickly able to find a cure for the syndrome, but not in time to do anything for Thane besides prolonging his life, and allowing him to die comfortably. He was among the last Drell to ever die of the syndrome. He spent the remainder of his life with his son, Kolyat. When writing his father's biography, Kolyat reported that, having patched up their relationship, his father accepted death, having no further regrets in life.

Kasumi Goto returned to her life of crime, eventually taking on a new partner she met while visiting the Federation version of Japan. Over the course of their relationship she attempted to renounce thievery approximately forty seven times, before age coupled with arthritis finally ended her career. She made a yearly pilgrimage to Illium in honor of her former partner, Keiji. Even in old age, she and her partner elected to live in a nursing home on Illium, so as not to break this tradition. In spite of several items mysteriously vanishing from the home, the only people aware of the true identity of Kasumi and her partner at the home were her neighbors, Kenneth and Gabriela Daniels. Her friends continued to visit, but always on the pretense of being there to visit Ken and Gabby, out of respect for her privacy.

Zaeed Massani returned to the mercenary life, often joined by his close friend Garrus Vakarian, before eventually becoming the proprietor and owner of the galaxy's largest firearm collection and museum. Popular legend has it that his final job ended in a firefight with several Blue Suns members, including their leader Vido Santiago. In the quiet after the firefight, he is reported to have remarked to Garrus “You hear that? Silence. That's the sound when everyone trying to kill you is dead.” Zaeed denied having made this remark, but did state that he wished he had, and eventually had it carved over the door of his museum.

Legion worked closely with Tali to ensure peace between the Geth and Quarians, and convincing the geth to relax their xenophobic practices enough to begin talks with the Quarians. After peace was established, he moved his programs into the geth superstructure to be with his people, though his platform was kept operational and uninhabited, should his programs ever wish to return to it.

Jacob Taylor remained in Starfleet, with Miranda, becoming the second person from another universe ever to join. He eventually became a captain himself. He maintained a casual romantic relationship with Miranda.

Kaidan Alenko eventually became friends with Fiona Shepard once more, and soon warmed to the rest of the new Normandy crew, in addition to maintaining a monument to the memory of Ashley Williams on Virmire.

EDI eventually designed a physical body, with more unique and personal characteristics that she selected. Although, at the finished result, many believed that Kenneth Donnelly and Jeff “Joker” Moreau may have had some design influence as well. While her eventual marriage to Joker was, at the time, only legal to perform on Rannoch, it was recognized as valid throughout both Council and Federation space.

Grunt returned to Tuchanka, where he was still officially part of Clan Urdnot. He soon earned the respect of the male Krogan. The female Krogan seemed to object much less to the idea of a genetically perfect Krogan in general, leading to Grunt being a highly requested breeding partner after the end of the genophage. He grew to be a respected leader of Krogan, and had a large and beloved (if in an odd, Krogan sort of way) family. He is also known for having been banned from over 300 different noodle establishments across fifty worlds. While no one has officially checked, it is generally agreed that this is probably a record.

Kelly Chambers returned to school earned a Master’s degree in psychology before opening an accredited practice, specializing in couple’s therapy. She became better known for her bestselling book, “Erogenous Zone Overlays Throughout the Multiverse: A Guide on Pleasing your Lover, Regardless of Race, Gender (or Lack Thereof) or Chirality.” While the book's advice was sound (she stated, in the dedication, that most of the more medical aspects, and the overlays themselves, were made with the aid of a Salarian who opted to remain anonymous), her claim of having had firsthand experience with every race and gender mentioned in her book was widely criticized as being “medically impossible.” Her seriousness in this claim has been debated, though, whenever questioned about it in interviews, she held fast to it.

Shepard's Fish survived for the length of their predicted lifespans, though Shepard admitted this was entirely due to Kelly Chambers.

Jean-Luc Picard managed to mediate a peace between the Romulans and the Remans, narrowly averting a Reman rebellion and takeover that may have landed a clone of himself as praetor of the Romulan Empire. He spent the next several years working closely with Ambassador Spock and Commander Donatra to secure peace with the Romulans, before retiring to his family vineyards in France. He maintained efforts to keep in touch with his former crew, and always insured there was no shortage of his family wine at the marriages of both his officers, and Commander Shepard. He is best remembered for his starfleet career, particularly as commander of the Enterprise. In William Riker-Troi's biography of Picard, he noted that in Picard's old age he “Frequently abused his status as an old man to be as openly cranky, contrary, and rude as he had always wanted to be, ten times as bad as when he first commanded the Enterprise. In spite of his behavior, however, and in spite of the fact he'd wring my neck for saying this, were he here now, he was the kindest old man I ever knew. There was no length he wouldn't go to in order to see a smile on the face of an old friend.”

Doctor Beverly Crusher went on to command her own medical ship, the Pasteur. She retained a close, and occasionally romantic relationship with Captain Picard, and helped him to engineer an Earth dextro grape as part of a wedding present. She is also credited with the development of a cure for Kepral's syndrome, becoming the first human to receive the Sandarn award, the Hanar equivalent to a Nobel Prize. Her general inexperience with Hanar customs while accepting the award, as well as falling asleep during the 14 hour ceremony, virtually ensured she would also be the last human to receive the Sandarn award.

William and Dianna Riker-Troi were married soon after, with Riker taking command of his first ship. His career was exceptional, though not particularly noteworthy, once off the Enterprise. However, he always claimed complete satisfaction with his career, saying that the excitement of the Enterprise was more than enough to make up for his more normal later career. “Besides,” he once remarked. “Picard already did most everything worth doing first. I had the pleasure of being with him while he did it. That's more than enough for me.”

Data became first officer of the Enterprise, once Riker had departed for his own command. After Captain Picard's retirement, she declined to take the captain's chair and, instead, retired from Starfleet himself, in order to take a position at Cambridge University, where she became chair of the physics department. She was well liked in this position, with both students and faculty noting that her sense of humor never became entirely human like, which, in a strange way, made her even funnier than she would have been otherwise. As part of an experiment with human gender rolls, Data would later made modifications to her body, adopting a female form and voice, and identity, similar to EDI's former holographic form. While she found she identified female no more or less strongly than male, she opted to keep her female form as, among other things, it made her physically distinct from other Soong type androids, such as Lore. While visiting her opposite number at the Alliance Earth's Cambridge University, Data received a request for aid from one Samantha Traynor, a student at Oxford, who was attempting to improve communication between universes. The two became fast friends and, while it was several relationships later for both of them, long-term romantic partners.

Worf, son of Mogh, returned to Deep Space Nine, where he remained for the rest of his Starfleet career. He eventually returned to the Klingons, in an attempt to restore honor to the Klingon political system, which he saw as having degraded into a mess of treachery, dishonorable backstabbing, and general un-Klingon like behavior. He lived out the rest of his natural life on this task, with a reasonable degree of success. Some Klingons see it as a mark of dishonor that Worf died of age, rather than in battle. However, others contend that the fact that he was able to survive for decades in Klingon politics without getting murdered, or even seriously wounded, was the mark of a true warrior.

Geordi LaForge would continue as the chief engineer of the Enterprise until the retirement of Captain Picard. Given the absence of Riker and Troi, the retirement of Picard and Data and the fact that Dr. Crusher had been offered command of her own medical ship, Geordi decided it was time to hand the Enterprise over to the next generation and left as well. He became the Federation representative on Rannoch, where the Quarian peace treaty with the Geth necessitated the building of a Geth superstructure, in which all Geth programs could be uploaded at once, fulfilling their goal of a single collective consciousness. With the help of Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, Legion, and grudging support from Admiral Xen, Geordi designed a superstructure that would become the second moon of Rannoch. In order to cancel out gravitational forces, the third moon of Rannoch was also designed, and placed in orbit at an equal distance from Rannoch, though on the opposite side. At the end of the project, Geordi retired from Starfleet, and married Tali'Zorah. The two lived out their lives on Rannoch, with their two adopted human and quarian children.

Seven of Nine served for a time under Miranda Lawson. While she enjoyed her work, she quickly found herself still dissatisfied with the conflict between her human and Borg nature. At the first opportunity, she took a long term research assignment on Rannoch, doing studies on the planet's unique ecosystem. There she found the Quarian people far more accepting of cybernetics, due to the fact that they were all heavily implanted with them. She also found her conversations with the Geth to be interesting. Between the organic Quarians, and the synthetic Geth, she found Rannoch fit her dual nature remained, and took up permanent assignment there. She would later go on to have herself fitted with several Quarian implants, having discovered she rather enjoyed her nature as a cybernetic being, when the implants were of her choosing and free will. In the end, she identified as the last Borg, though, as a collective of one, she felt it in her power to redefine what it was to be Borg, and embrace her freedom and individuality. She also entered into a romantic relationship with a collective of some 2000 geth programs. (For more information on organic/geth sexuality, please consult “Erogenous Zone Overlays Throughout the Multiverse: A Guide on Pleasing your Lover, Regardless of Race, Gender (or Lack Thereof) or Chirality” by Dr. Chambers, “Upload of Geth Programs into Quarian Cybernetics” by Daro'Xen vas Rannoch Ph.D, “Quarian/Borg Implant Compatibility” by Seven of Nine, “Robosexuality: A Guide to Embracing your Orientation” by Samantha Traynor Ph.D, and “Operating Manual: Nerve-Stim Pro Model TH1138x” by Unknown Author.)


End file.
